What does moral hazard mean? - Definitions.net - top.onlinerealmoneygames.xyz

Hans-Herman Hoppe is a German-born Austrian school economist and paleolibertarian anarcho-capitalist philosopher. He did his undergraduate studies at Universität des Saarlandes in Saarbrücken, received his MA and PhD at Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt, and was a postdoctoral fellow at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor before earning his habilitation back at Goethe-Universität. Hoppe immigrated to America in 1986 to study under Murray Rothbard in New York City, with whom he remained close until Rothbard’s death in 1995.
A culturally conservative libertarian, Hoppe founded the The Property and Freedom Society in 2006. His goal was twofold: to explain the requirements and features of a free, stateless natural order, and to expose the state itself as “an institution run by gangs of murderers, plunderers and thieves, surrounded by willing executioners, propagandists, sycophants, crooks, liars, clowns, charlatans, dupes and useful idiots.” Hoppe leaves little to interpretation regarding his feelings on government.
Hoppe introduced his argumentation ethics theory in 1988. It is a meaty theory to say the least, but at its heart it holds that any argument against individual sovereignty is inherently unsound; that any transgression against self-ownership is unjustifiable. In short, one who takes your property without your consent can never purport to serve a higher purpose – they are only a thief, and a thug.
In his 2011 book Democracy: The God That Failed, Hoppe details the problems which inevitably arise in a democratic government as the result of groups which pressure it for greater regulation. He advises unequivocal freedom of contract, decentralization of government, and succession in order to combat these ills.
In Democracy Hoppe also details a libertarian society in which people would voluntarily form covenant communities based on shared self-interests. This hypothetical society would place the utmost value on freedom of association and private property rather than get bogged down appeasing the left with endless concessions to social justice.
Interestingly for so steadfast a libertarian, Hoppe does believe that the state, so long as it exists, should impose some restrictions on immigration so as to avert forced integration. This view has provoked ire from the usual circles, which are quick to point out that Hoppe himself is an immigrant. Hoppe kicked yet another hornet’s nest in 2004 when he made an offhand, negative comment during a lecture about the money saving habits of homosexuals, but attempts to force that incident to color his entire academic career have proven rather toothless.
Hoppe’s other notable English language works include A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism (1989), Economic Science and the Austrian Method (1995), and The Economics and Ethics of Private Property (2006). He also wrote the 1998 introduction to Rothbard’s The Ethics of Liberty.
Hoppe was a professor of economics at University of Nevada, Las Vegas from 1986 until his retirement in 2008, and is currently a distinguished fellow with the Mises Institute which published much of his work. He now resides in Turkey.
[b]Hoppe Quotes[/b]
“Liberty instead of Democracy!”
“Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else.”
“As soon as a crisis breaks out, within the given institutional framework, the same mistake will be made over and over again, on a larger and larger scale. Every future crisis will be bigger than the crisis that we had before.”
“If the right to vote were expanded to seven year olds … its policies would most definitely reflect the ‘legitimate concerns’ of children to have ‘adequate’ and ‘equal’ access to ‘free’ french fries, lemonade and videos.”
“Our existence is due to the fact that we do not, indeed cannot accept a norm outlawing property in other scarce resources next to and in addition to that of one’s physical body. Hence, the right to acquire such goods must be assumed to exist.”
“The property right in one’s own body must be said to be justified a priori, for anyone who would try to justify any norm whatsoever would already have to presuppose the exclusive right to control over his body as a valid norm simply in order to say “I propose such in such.”
“if the power of government rests on the widespread acceptance of false indeed absurd and foolish ideas, then the only genuine protection is the systematic attack of these ideas and the propagation and proliferation of true ones.”
“A state is a territorial monopolist of compulsion – an agency which may engage in continual, institutionalized property rights violations and the expropriation, taxation and regulation – of private property owners.”
“In accordance with his high time preference, he may want to be a vagabond, a drifter, a drunkard, a junkie, a daydreamer, or simply a happy go-lucky kind of guy who likes to work as little as possible in order to enjoy each and every day to the fullest.”
“Egalitarian and relativistic sentiments find steady support among ever new generations of adolescents. Owing to their still incomplete mental development, juveniles, especially of the male variety, are always susceptible to both ideas.”
“Conflict is not unavoidable. However, it is nonsensical to consider the institution of a state as a solution to the problem of possible conflict, because it is precisely the institution of a state which first makes conflict unavoidable and permanent.”
“Without the continued existence of the democratic system and of publicly funded education and research, however, most current teachers and intellectuals would be unemployed or their income would fall to a small fraction of its present level. Instead of researching the syntax of Ebonics, the love life of mosquitoes, or the relationship between poverty and crime for $100 grand a year, they would research the science of potato growing or the technology of gas pump operation for $20 grand.”
“There can be no socialism without a state, and as long as there is a state there is socialism. The state, then, is the very institution that puts socialism into action; and as socialism rests on aggressive violence directed against innocent victims, aggressive violence is the nature of any state.”
“Egalitarianism, in every form and shape, is incompatible with the idea of private property. Private property implies exclusivity, inequality, and difference. And cultural relativism is incompatible with the fundamental – indeed foundational – fact of families and intergenerational kinship relations. Families and kinship relations imply cultural absolutism.”
“As for the moral status of majority rule, it must be pointed out that it allows for A and B to band together to rip off C, C and A in turn joining to rip off B, and then B and C conspiring against A, and so on.”
“…bums and inferior people will likely support his egalitarian policies, whereas geniuses and superior people will not. For [this] reason … a democratic ruler undertakes little to actively expel those people whose presence within the country constitutes a negative externality (human trash which drives individual property values down).”
“A member of the human race who is completely incapable of understanding the higher productivity of labor performed under a division of labor based on private property is not properly speaking a person … but falls instead into the same moral category as an animal – of either the harmless sort (to be domesticated and employed as a producer or consumer good, or to be enjoyed as a “free good”) or the wild and dangerous one (to be fought as a pest). On the other hand, there are members of the human species who are capable of understanding the [value of the division of labor] but … who knowingly act wrongly … Besides having to be tamed or even physically defeated they must also be punished … to make them understand the nature of their wrongdoings and hopefully teach them a lesson for the future.”
“In every society, a few individuals acquire the status of an elite through talent. Due to superior achievements of wealth, wisdom, and bravery, these individuals come to possess natural authority, and their opinions and judgments enjoy wide-spread respect. Moreover, because of selective mating, marriage, and the laws of civil and genetic inheritance, positions of natural authority are likely to be passed on within a few noble families. It is to the heads of these families with long-established records of superior achievement, farsightedness, and exemplary personal conduct that men turn to with their conflicts and complaints against each other. These leaders of the natural elite act as judges and peacemakers, often free of charge out of a sense of duty expected of a person of authority or out of concern for civil justice as a privately produced ‘public good.”
“According to the pronouncements of our state rulers and their intellectual bodyguards (of whom there are more than ever before), we are better protected and more secure than ever. We are supposedly protected from global warming and cooling, from the extinction of animals and plants, from the abuses of husbands and wives, parents and employers, from poverty, disease, disaster, ignorance, prejudice, racism, sexism, homophobia, and countless other public enemies and dangers. In fact, however, matters are strikingly different. In order to provide us with all this protection, the state managers expropriate more than 40 percent of the incomes of private producers year in and year out. Government debt and liabilities have increased without interruption, thus increasing the need for future expropriations. Owing to the substitution of government paper money for gold, financial insecurity has increased sharply, and we are continually robbed through currency depreciation. Every detail of private life, property, trade, and contract is regulated by ever higher mountains of laws legislation), thereby creating permanent legal uncertainty and moral hazard. In particular, we have been gradually stripped of the right to exclusion implied in the very concept of private property. … In short, the more the state has increased its expenditures on social security and public safety, the more our private property rights have been eroded, the more our property has been expropriated, confiscated, destroyed, or depreciated, and the more we have been deprived of the very foundation of all protection: economic independence, financial strength, and personal wealth.”
“If no one can appeal to justice except to government, justice will be perverted in favor of the government, constitutions and supreme courts notwithstanding. Constitutions and supreme courts are state constitutions and agencies, and whatever limitations to state action they might contain or find is invariably decided by agents of the very institution under consideration. Predictably, the definition of property and protection will continually be altered and the range of jurisdiction expanded to the government’s advantage until, ultimately, the notion of universal and immutable human rights – and in particular property rights – will disappear and be replaced by that of law as government-made legislation and rights as government-given grants.”
“We must promote the idea of secession. Or more specifically, we must promote the idea of a world composed of tens of thousands of distinct districts, regions, and cantons, and hundred of thousands of independent free cities such as the present day oddities of Monaco, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Greatly increased opportunities for economically motivated migration would thus result, and the world would be one of small classically liberal governments economically integrated through free trade and an international commodity money such as gold.”
“The monopolization of money and banking is the ultimate pillar on which the modern state rests. In fact, it is probably become the most cherished instrument for increasing state income. For nowhere else can the state make the connection between redistribution-expenditure and exploitation-return more directly, quickly, and securely than by monopolizing money and banking. And nowhere else are the state’s schemes less clearly understood than here.”
Hans-Hermann Hoppe Quotes on Liberty, Freedom, Government, and More originally appeared in Thought Grenades, the blog on LibertasBella.com.

[Essay] *Reductio ad absurdum* in classic and modern satirical prose Part 1

Longpost® 3: Electric Squeedlee.
Reductio ad absurdum in classic and modern satirical prose.
The main relevance of this topic to experimentalism concerns the incorporation of internet-culture prose conventions into modern fiction
In honour of this commitment I submit the below Longpost® for consideration.
Foreseeably, if not avoidably, this full essay had to be halved to fit the Reddit-post character limit.
Here is the full essay as a Google Doc with more authors, extracts, more of my examples, and better formatting.
I chose this prose style as a topic because I notice that most people have an instinctive sensibility for it, to the point where it is often much more of a 'first language', literarily speaking, than more classic literary prose.
For perhaps this reason, it appears extensively in both low- and high-effort user-generated content. You will be most familiar with it from meme content such as copypasta and montage parodies, but its history is longer than that of the modern novel, and it appears abundantly in both classical and modern satirical prose.
Some of the below texts follow the technique somewhat loosely, seeking less to disprove an argument than to follow a line of thinking to an extreme in order to demonstrate that it leads somewhere insane. This is most obvious in texts owing stylistic debt to Jonathan Swift, and in 'Boléro-style' passages which accelerate to a catastrophic climax.
Another aim in choosing this topic is to introduce contemporary satirical writers to objects and styles of contemporary satire, having largely to do with the relationship between humans and technology. Identity politics is also a popular favourite, but produces some of the more dubious content, and to those who operate on the quite valid perception that party-political satire is impotent if not dead, I present the former avenue for consideration.
Introduction
Reductio ad absurdum is a feature of Aristotelian logic, most commonly used in satire, rhetoric and debate.
According to Wikipedia:

'In logic, reductio ad absurdum (Latin for '"reduction to absurdity"')...is the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absurdity or contradiction.'

Classic rhetorical examples include:

'There is no smallest positive rational number because, if there were, then it could be divided by two to get a smaller one.'

A modern example:

'Olive oil on your salad is not going to make you fat, otherwise people on the Mediterranean would all be morbidly obese.'

In literature, this rhetorical technique commonly manifests itself in a writer adopting an absurd article of rhetoric or worldview, and playing it out over the course of a passage or text to its absurd logical conclusion.
In this essay we will refer to the following authors:

Cervantes
Jonathan Swift
Voltaire
William S. Burroughs

We will also discuss the influence of this tradition on modern visual media and user-generated internet content, with regard to:

Tim & Eric
Copypasta

Finally, I include an example of my own attempts to incorporate the above influences into contemporary satirical fiction:

The Merciless Current

We will then conclude with some brief comments on the applicability of all this bullshit.
I thank you in advance for your endurance.
Cervantes - Don Quixote (1605)
One of the most famous early examples of modern literary satire is Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote. The text is essentially an exercise in sustained sympathetic embarrassment over a 16th-Century gentleman LARPing as a knight. It is explicitly stated to be an attack on the then-enormous influence of chivalric romances on the popular conscience.
An introduction to the novel quotes the perhaps hyperbolic…

'...words of one of his own countrymen, Don Felix Pacheco, as reported by Captain George Carleton, in his "Military Memoirs from 1672 to 1713." ... "it was next to an impossibility for a man to walk the streets with any delight or without danger. There were seen so many cavaliers prancing and curvetting before the windows of their mistresses, that a stranger would have imagined the whole nation to have been nothing less than a race of knight-errants"'

An introductory note describes Don Quixote as:

'a tale setting forth the ludicrous results that might be expected to follow the attempt of a crazy gentleman to act the part of a knight-errant in modern life.'

An early example of such socially noxious conduct occurs when the then-aspiring knight, for the business of ceremonially 'watching' his armour - some part of the ritual of being knighted - chooses as a spot a trough which the inn's peasant guests require for the watering of their animals. When the peasants take exception to the obstruction of this essential utility, Don Quixote interprets this as a villainous attack on his armour, and behaves accordingly:

'Meanwhile one of the carriers who were in the inn thought fit to water his team, and it was necessary to remove Don Quixote's armour as it lay on the trough; but he seeing the other approach hailed him in a loud voice, "O thou, whoever thou art, rash knight that comest to lay hands on the armour of the most valorous errant that ever girt on sword, have a care what thou dost; touch it not unless thou wouldst lay down thy life as the penalty of thy rashness." The carrier gave no heed to these words (and he would have done better to heed them if he had been heedful of his health), but seizing it by the straps flung the armour some distance from him. Seeing this, Don Quixote raised his eyes to heaven, and fixing his thoughts, apparently, upon his lady Dulcinea, exclaimed, "Aid me, lady mine, in this the first encounter that presents itself to this breast which thou holdest in subjection; let not thy favour and protection fail me in this first jeopardy;" and, with these words and others to the same purpose, dropping his buckler he lifted his lance with both hands and with it smote such a blow on the carrier's head that he stretched him on the ground, so stunned that had he followed it up with a second there would have been no need of a surgeon to cure him. This done, he picked up his armour and returned to his beat with the same serenity as before.'

The whole novel is essentially a longform satirical experiment in playing the above ludicrousness out, ad absurdum, and is well worth the attention of any aspiring satirist.
Jonathan Swift - A Modest Proposal (1729)
A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick is one of the most illustrious stylistic ancestors of the modern technical shitpost.
It was released as a rhetorical pamphlet during the Irish Potato Famine, and parodied the style of similar such pamphlets, in whose production it was then the fashion for any lettered and leisured individual to participate.
This tradition of social engineering is perhaps the same which gave birth to Marx and socialism. However, from the primordial sulphur column of undifferentiated social theory, grotesque and unviable mutant candidates for alternative life were extruding themselves, thrashing in deformed agony, and expiring to decompose on its slopes.
A note on the Proposal's relation to this tradition from Wikipedia (Under 'Population Solutions' heading):

'George Wittkowsky argued that Swift's main target in A Modest Proposal was not the conditions in Ireland, but rather the can-do spirit of the times that led people to devise a number of illogical schemes that would purportedly solve social and economic ills.[2] Swift was especially attacking projects that tried to fix population and labour issues with a simple cure-all solution.[3] A memorable example of these sorts of schemes "involved the idea of running the poor through a joint-stock company".[3] In response, Swift's Modest Proposal was "a burlesque of projects concerning the poor"[4] that were in vogue during the early 18th century.'
'A Modest Proposal also targets the calculating way people perceived the poor in designing their projects. The pamphlet targets reformers who "regard people as commodities".[5] In the piece, Swift adopts the "technique of a political arithmetician"[6] to show the utter ridiculousness of trying to prove any proposal with dispassionate statistics.'

Some extracts which caricature the pompous, deadpan mathematical logic of contemporary rhetorical pamphleteering are as follows:

'I have reckoned upon a medium, that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, encreaseth to 28 pounds.'
…
'I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child (in which list I reckon all cottagers, labourers, and four-fifths of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum, rags included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have said, will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, when he hath only some particular friend, or his own family to dine with him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow popular among his tenants, the mother will have eight shillings neat profit, and be fit for work till she produces another child.'

Voltaire - Candide (1759)
Candide, ou l'Optimisme was a satirical text written in the buildup to the French Revolution, attacking the then-popular philosophical doctrine of Leibnizian Optimism. This doctrine was in essence an attempt to reconcile Catholic dogma with the logical reasoning of the Enlightenment.
Its most salient feature is its attempt to reconcile the existence of evil with the belief in an omnipotent, benevolent deity. It does this by claiming that, for reasons little-understood, but understandable through logical reasoning, the present world is the best that God could possibly have chosen to create.
Candide performs a sustained reductio ad absurdum argument against Optimism by confronting a simple, unquestioning character with an onslaught of the world's atrocities and challenging him to accept the necessary conclusions that, among other things, natural disaster, mutilation and slavery are logically at home in the best of all possible worlds.
From Wikipedia:

'Voltaire actively rejected Leibnizian optimism after the natural disaster, convinced that if this were the best possible world, it should surely be better than it is. In both Candide and Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne ("Poem on the Lisbon Disaster"), Voltaire attacks this optimist belief. He makes use of the Lisbon earthquake in both Candide and his Poème to argue this point, sarcastically describing the catastrophe as one of the most horrible disasters "in the best of all possible worlds"'

How Voltaire plays out the logic of Optimism ad absurdum is best illustrated by the various repetitions of the phrase 'all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds', confronting the reader with the insane prospect that such events be considered compatible with such a world:

'The entertainment began by a discharge of cannon, which, in the twinkling of an eye, laid flat about 6,000 men on each side. The musket bullets swept away, out of the best of all possible worlds, nine or ten thousand scoundrels that infested its surface. The bayonet was next the sufficient reason of the deaths of several thousands. The whole might amount to thirty thousand souls. Candide trembled like a philosopher, and concealed himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery.'
...
'Candide fainted away, and Pangloss fetched him some water from a neighboring spring. The next day, in searching among the ruins, they found some eatables with which they repaired their exhausted strength.After this they assisted the inhabitants in relieving the distressed and wounded. Some, whom they had humanely assisted, gave them as good a dinner as could be expected under such terrible circumstances. The repast, indeed, was mournful, and the company moistened their bread with their tears; but Pangloss endeavored to comfort them under this affliction by affirming that things could not be otherwise that they were.
'“For,” said he, “all this is for the very best end, for if there is a volcano at Lisbon it could be in no other spot; and it is impossible but things should be as they are, for everything is for the best.”'

William S. Burroughs - Naked Lunch (1959)
William Burroughs employs reductio and absurdum and similar satirical techniques so extensively in Naked Lunch, that reading it with this in mind goes a long way toward illuminating its more obscure passages.
One of its recurrent motifs - Lobotomy - was abundantly practiced at the time of Naked Lunch's writing.
Burroughs evidently finds the idea that the frontal cortex may be considered superfluous, and the apparent compulsion of many physicists to remedy this evolutionary extravagance, to be absurd and abhorrent.
He presents his physicians as motivated by an out-of-control fixation with efficiency, as well as a compulsive urge to practice their profession whether helpful to the patient or not; presents lobotomy as an extension of the removal of other arguably redundant organs, like the appendix.

'...and the German practitioner of Technological Medicine who removed his appendix with a rusty can opener and a pair of tin snips (he considered the germ theory "a nonsense"). Flushed with success he then began snipping and cutting out everything in sight: "The human body is filled up vit unnecessitated parts. You can get by vit vone kidney. Vy have two? Yes dot is a kidney … The inside parts should not be so close in together crowded. They need Lebensraum like the Vaterland."'
...
Meeting of International Conference of Technological Psychiatry
'Doctor "Fingers" Schafer, the Lobotomy Kid, rises and turns on the Conference the cold blue blast of his gaze:
'"Gentlemen, the human nervous system can be reduced to a compact and abbreviated spinal column. The brain, front, middle and rear must follow the adenoid, the wisdom tooth, the appendix … I give you my master work: The Complete All American Deanxietized Man …"
...
'Schafer is not listening. "You know," he says impulsively, "I think I'll go back to plain old-fashioned surgery. The human body is scandalously inefficient. Instead of a mouth and an abyss to get out of order why not have one all-purpose hole to eat and eliminate? We could seal up nose and mouth, fill in the stomach, make an air hole direct into the lungs where it should have been in the first place …"
'BENWAY: "Why not one all-purpose blob? Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk? ..."' Full routine for the interested.

We will shortly touch on another Burroughs example, but must make a brief aside to introduce the concept of the 'bolero structure'.
Boléro, by Maurice Ravel, is a piece of music which begins at a low volume and builds in a continuous crescendo to arrive at an explosive climax.
A modern example of a similar track is that of Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit.
Along with volume, other elements may be steadily increased, including tempo.
The use of this structure abounds in satirical user-generated internet content, such as the following Steve Harvey copypasta:

'Steve Harvey: "We asked 100 people, what is the male reproductive organ?" Contestant: "The penis" SH: "A WUH... HUH??" audience erupts into laughter Steve Harvey grabs onto podium to support himself laughter gets even louder SH: O lordy... one man goes into cardiac arrest and many others begin vomiting profusely from laughing too hard SH: YOU PEOPLE NEED HELP the Earth shatters and Satan rises from the underworld to claim unworthy souls the universe begins rapidly closing in on itself SH: (putting on a weary voice) Survey says... the board shows 100 for "penis" Harvey is able to get off one more shocked look before existence as we know it comes to an end.'

It is also abundant in skit comedy, including much of Tim & Eric's work, as we will see below.
Burroughs, in Naked Lunch, employs a similar structure gratuitously, and in a somewhat Swiftian manner. One example occurs in the chapter Hospital, in which an impression is introduced in the opening lines of a paragraph, and riffed on in the course of a crescendo toward an insane climax:

'I am passing room 10 they moved me out of yesterday … Maternity case J assume … Bedpans full of blood and Kotex and nameless female substances, enough to pollute a continent … If someone comes to visit me in my old room he will think I gave birth to s monster and the State Department is trying to hush it up …
'Music from I Am an American … An elderly man in the striped pants and cutaway of a diplomat stands on a platform draped with an American flag. A decayed, corseted tenor--bursting out of a Daniel Boone costume--is singing "The Star-Spangled Banner," accompanied by a full orchestra. He sings with a slight lisp …
'THE DIPLOMAT (reading from a great scroll of ticker tape that keeps growing and tangling around his feet): "And we categorically deny that any male citizen of the United States of America …"
'TENOR: "Oh thay can you thee …" His voice breaks and shoots up to a high falsetto.
'In the control room the Technician mixes a bicarbonate of soda and belches into his hand: "God damned tenor's a brown artist!" he mutters sourly. "Mike! rumph," the shout ends in a belch. "Cut that swish fart off the air and give him his purple slip. He's through as of right now … Put in that sex-chanhed Liz athlete … She's a full-time tenor at least … Costume! How in the fuck should I know? I'm no dr de designer swish from the costume department! What's that? The entire costume department occluded as a security risk? What am I, an octopus? Let's see … How about an Indian routine? Pocahontas or Hiawatha? … No, that's not right. Some citizen cracks wise about giving it back to the Indians … A Civil War uniform, the coat North and the pants South like it show they got together again? She can come on like Buffalo Bill or Paul Revere or that citizen wouldn't give up the shit, I mean the ship, or a GI or a Doughboy or the Unknown Soldier … That's the best deal … Cover her with a monument, that way nobody has to look at her …"
'The Lesbian, concealed in a papier-mâché Arc de Triomphe, fills her great lungs and looses a tremendous bellow.
'Oh say do that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave …"
'A great rent rips the Arc de Triomphe from top to bottom. The Diplomat puts a hand to his forehead …
'THE DIPLOMAT: "That any make citizen of the United States has given birth in Interzone or at any other place …"
'"O'er the land of the FREEEEEEEEEE …"
'The Diplomat's mouth is moving but no one can hear him. The Technician clasps his hand over his ears: "Mother of God!" he screams. His plate begins to vibrate like a Jew's harp, suddenly flies out of his mouth … He snaps at it irritably, misses and covers his mouth with one hand.
'The Arc Dr Triomphe falls with a ripping, splintering crash, reveals the Lesbian standing on a pedestal clad only in a leopard-skin jockstrap with enormous falsie basket … She stands there smiling stupidly and flexing her huge muscles … The Technician is crawling around on the control room floor looking for his plate and shouting unintelligible orders: "Thess thupper thonic!! Thut ur oth thu thair!"
'THE DIPLOMAT (wiping sweat from his brow): "To any creature of any type or description …"
*'"And the home of the brave."
'The Diplomat's face is grey. He staggers, trips in the scroll, sags against the rail, blood pouring from eyes, nose and mouth, dying of cerebral hemorrhage.
'THE DIPLOMAT (barely audible): "The Department denies … un-American … It's been destroyed … I mean it never was … Categor …" Dies.
'In the Control Room instrument panels are blowing out … Great streamers of electricity crackle through the room … The Technician, naked, his body burned black, staggers about like a figure in Götterdämmerung, screaming: "Thubber thonic!! Oth thu thair!!!" A final blast reduces the Technician to a cinder.'

This format runs parallel to reductio ad absurdum, but is distinct from it in that it does not necessarily seek to disprove an argument, merely to demonstrate the ridiculousness of its subject matter via hyperbole. In this case, Burroughs uses the initial impression of the State Department trying to hush up the fact of a male citizen having given birth as synecdoche for his contemporary America's desperate attempts to downplay its own ugly realities, and incorporates these realities - colonial history, homosexuality, and as is implicit in the final explosion - and clearer with reference to other passages featuring The Technician - the atomic bomb.
This parallel ad absurdum, not wanting to embarrass myself by attempting to christen it in Latin, I will refer to in English throughout the rest of this essay as escalation to absurdity.
Many of the later examples we will touch on employ this structure.
Tim & Eric - Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job (2007-10)
A large number of Tim and Eric's skits, most notably those involving adverts for unwantable products, suggest the output of a market-research team operating on a bafflingly one-dimensional concept of what consumers want, at the expense of any commonsense notion of the unpleasant.
A number of their fictional commodities bear conspicuous resemblances to real products - B'Owl ressembles Furby - and the exaggerated design blunders built on in the skits reflect real design choices applied to those products.
iJammer
This skit overapplies a similar design philosophy to that satirised by the typical Montage Parody, or YouTube Poop, that more stimulation is unconditionally better.
It features a product whose sole application is the production of a dubiously-calibrated audio-haptic reward cue, which are traditionally auxiliary to the user-experience of a device. A parallel commodity is that of Jim&Derrick's Flavor Dust™. The escalation to absurdity structure is followed to the point of equating the device's stimulation effect and addictive potential to that of cocaine:

"I just need one more bump!"

The former skit anticipates the fixation with gambling-originated audio-visual reward cues in the development of tackier PC, console and mobile games, particularly those marketed to children.
Considering that the Montage Parody staple: airhorn.mpg has gone sufficiently mainstream to be featured at a record-scratch rhythm as a recurring transition on my local radio station, what might seem like implausibly excessive satire has in-fact proven fairly prescient.
Discount Prices
This skit involves the idea that the price is replacing the commodity as the object of promotion, played out according to the structure of an ordinary advert.
Like the i-Jammer skit, this segment follows a Boléro structure, increasing in the extremity and pacing of the accusations exchanged by the competing businessmen. Escalation structures around the driving force of one-upmanship are fairly common and intuitive to implement.
"Remove the Teeth"
A number of the advertisements feature highly intimate and crude integration of technology with the human body.
Products like the Cinco Food Tube, and Eye Tanning System, and the total-immersion Schlaaang Super Seat all represent grossly distasteful examples of body-technology interaction in the service of absurd manufactured needs.
These products are all extreme hypothetical outcomes of the uncritical assumption that human integration with technology will necessarily be life-enhancing and comfortable.
This is a parallel strain of satire to that expressed in Naked Lunch on the subject of the modern American tendency towards being swaddled in appliances as a product of Fordian manufactured demand:

'AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE: (opening a box of Lux): "Why don't it have an electric eye the box open when it see me and hand itself to the Automat Handy Man he should put it in a water already … The Handy Man is outa control since Thursday, he been getting physical with me and I didn't put it in his combination at all … And the Garbage Disposal Unit snapping at me, and the nasty old Mixmaster keep trying to get up under my dress … I got the most awful cold, and my intestines is all constipated … I'm gone*** put it in the Handy Man's combination he should administer me a high colonic awready.'*
...
'"It was K.E. put out the Octopus Kit for Massage Parlours, Barber Shops and Turkish Baths, with which you can administer a high colonic, an unethical massage, a shampoo, whilst cutting the client's toenails and removing his blackheads. And the M.D.'s Can Do Kit for busy practitioners will take out your appendix, tuck in a hernia, pull out a wisdom tooth, ectomize your piles and circumcise you. Well, K.E. is such an atomic salesman if he runs out of Octopus Kits he is subject, by sheer charge, to sell an M.D. Can Do to a barber shop and some citizen wakes up with his piles cut out …'

Of the three Cinco products, the Super Seat is perhaps the most recognisable as relating to a real product category, though it's worth noting that various highly dubious tanning 'solutions' do currently exist.
Another iteration on dubious ergonomics comes in the Cinco Privacy Helmet. This skit follows a similar line to the i-Jammer product and the Montage-Parody airhorn.mpg: the presentation of extreme auditory stimulation uncalibrated for tolerability.
Copypasta

"And I strongly suspect that when this revolution takes place, art will no longer be distinguished by its rarity, or its expense, or its inaccessibility, or the extraordinary way in which it is marketed, it will be the prerogative of all of us, and we will do it as those artists did whom Freud understood not at all, the artists who made the Cathedral of Chartres, or the mosaics of Byzantium, the artists who had no Ego, and no name." - Germaine Greer Town Bloody Hall.

I don't think that when Greer said this what she thought she meant was:

'Hey guys, did you know that in terms of male human and female Pokémon breeding, Vaporeon is the most compatible Pokémon for humans? Not only are they in the field egg group, which is mostly comprised of mammals, Vaporeon are an average of 3"03' tall and 63.9 pounds. this means they're large enough to be able to handle human dicks, and with their impressive Base Stats for HP and access to Acid Armor, you can be rough with one. Due to their mostly water based biology, there's no doubt in my mind that an aroused Vaporeon would be incredibly wet, so wet that you could easily have sex with one for hours without getting sore. They can also learn the moves Attract, Baby-Doll Eyes, Captivate, Charm, and Tail Whip, along with not having fur to hide nipples, so it'd be incredibly easy for one to get you in the mood. With their abilities Water Absorb and Hydration, they can easily recover from fatigue with enough water. No other Pokémon comes close to this level of compatibility. Also, fun fact, if you pull out enough, you can make your Vaporeon turn white'

However, she appears to have been thoroughly prescient as regards the democratisation of certain varieties of art. Whether this has necessitated in a transformation of what 'art' is, and whether or not such a transformation represents a quantitative degeneration, or qualitative perversion, is outside the scope of this already inexcusably long essay.
Considering that as early as the 1700s, when A Modest Proposal was written, there already existed a laughable tradition of pseudoacademic rhetorical contribution among non-academic sectors of high society, this democratisation may be seen as a simple expansion of a process that has been ongoing since the Enlightenment.
The above Vaporeon pasta forms part of a tradition which owes a sizeable indirect debt to Jonathan Swift. It addresses its subject - that of absurdly high-effort attempts to justify Rule-34 waifu culture with dubious linear and/or moral reasoning - in the same way Swift addressed flippant social engineering around the Irish Potato Famine: by adopting the voice of the person who 'did the math'.
Next we go back to some more traditional reductio ad absurdum arguments, which consist in playing out a dubious logical position and demonstrating that it is consistent with an absurd one.
A popular example is to caricature the precarious, tangentially linear argument style of Republican pundit Ben Shapiro, by demonstrating that it can be used to justify absolutely anything. The same 'let's say, hypothetically…' structure is used in many different examples:

'Let's say, you've been a bad girl. Let's say, hypothetically, you've been a naughty girl even. Ok, and if you were a naughty girl you would also be my dirty little slut right? Then hypothetically speaking you would be my little cumslut. Now; let's say that you're also daddy's girl. Now that we've established you're both a bad girl and daddy's girl, then I believe you'd agree with me when I say you deserve a spanking. Am I not correct? A bad girl deserves a spanking, and as I am daddy; you are my girl, so I am the one who must provide punishment.'
...
'Now, lets say, hypothetically, that somebody once told me that the world would proceed to roll me, and made the claim that I was not, the smartest tool in the shed. Which would lead us to look at the facts and see that she was looking kind of dumb, due to the fact that she had placed her finger and her thumb, in the shape of the letter L, located on her forehead. This would mean that the years would start coming, and logically wont stop coming, that I was, hypothetically, fed to the rules, which would proceed with me hitting the ground running. Which didn’t make sense, to live for fun, in a way that your brain gets smart, yet your head gets dumb, seeing as there’s so much to do, and so much to see, so now I must pose the question, what is wrong with taking the backseat? This is due to the fact that you’ll never know if you don’t go, nor you will shine if you don’t glow. For you see, you are, at this moment, an All-Star, so get your game on, and proceed to go play, indeed, you’re an All-Star, get the show on, which would entitled you to get paid. That would mean that all that glitters, is indeed gold, and that only shooting stars, can participate in the process of breaking the mold.'

Early examples of these pieces play around a demonstration that Shapiro's argument style is tenuous since it can be used to 'prove' absurd points with just as much soundness as believable ones - i.e. none. More recent examples, like the Smash Mouth All Star one, use these now-familiar format as the backbone of a meme, parodying its tokenistic intellectual jargon by applying it to what is obviously not a logical argument.
Another popular application of satirical pasta is to parse legitimate support for progressive policies from an intuitive sense that corporate support for the same policies is often disingenuous and condescending. The Steve Buscemi How do you do, fellow Kids meme, often applied to dubious corporate attempts to appear relatable to a young demographic, has been adapted into a longer format for the purpose:

'Hello, fellow homosexuals. It is us, [MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR CORPORATION]. Here to remind you that we support your lifestyle now that it has been federally legalised and it is completely socially safe, allowing for us to capitalise on your existence now it's mainstream. Look, we even changed the colours of [LOGO]! Why did we wait this long to come out and 'support' you? Haha, no more questions, homosexual. Buy our product. Buy our product. BUY OUR PRODUCT.'

This is the logical outcome of applying the ingenuous tone of corporate support for progressive issues with their conspicuous lack of support for the same issues when they were at a more vulnerable stage. The suggestion is that if one is to perceive corporate progressivism as sincere, one must accept that for unstated reasons, presumably cowardice, corporates choose not to adopt these practices until they become mainstream, this being of similar plausibility to the alternative hypothesis that progressivism simply now adds value to a brand.
My own example - The Merciless Current
This piece is an auxiliary media sequence forming part of a novel.

'A procession of TV chefs await judgement on their food. The first of them takes two polite steps up onto a raised plateau before a panel of minor celebrities at a three-place dining table decked with chequered red bistro cloth. The ranking panelist has delivered their preliminary summary of the contestant's menu, as well as a narrative of their endeavours, and is preparing to pass sentence. We are anticipating two and a half minutes of cuts to faces, food and furniture before the score swells from a blend of NASA-pre-launch-countdown and sneak themes into despair or reconciliation harmony as the revelation is made.
'All these shots are indeed presented, but compressed into a single second's runtime, after which the judge delivers a concise and helpful assessment of the food.
'"Thank you Chef." [Departs]
'The next contestant steps meekly up. As the judge begins to summarise, her monologue speeds up beyond comprehensibility, the cuts to faces, food and flashback are strobed through, the chef judged and dismissed in the course of a half-second - the audio slowing as she departs from the stand just enough to make audible her helium-pitched "Thank you Chef".
'White VHS fast-forward lines begin to tear across the shot as the queue of three remaining chefs are suctioned almost simultaneously up to the podium, their individual retrospectives coalescing into a single sequence of almost superimposed images, and drawn immediately off-set by the merciless current of accelerated time.
'The perspective cuts to that of a boom-mounted camera tracking backwards over the heads of the audience, whose babbling pitches up to a note of urgent complaint as they are magnetised out of the space like iron filings and replaced with an identical crowd and a cast of interchangeable chefs is processed in seconds, dismissed, and relieved by another. As the camera reaches the back corner of the seating area, the shot slips out the back of it through its workings and recedes up and away from the boom crane over the isometrically-oriented set.
'Chefs and audience are now arriving and departing in continuous flow, as the widening shot reveals a procession of 1940s German steam engines discharging batches of cast and crowd backstage-right. Backstage-left the retired cast are stripped and dismantled by multiarmed factory machines; incinerated in a conveyor-belt procession of coffins now resembling a time-lapse shot of a highway. Sound-effects of industrial chaos.
'Alternative sets are now visible in an animated polyptych of Inferno, booms windscreen-wiping over the sets, generations of cast and audience discharged by an elaborate network of heavy and light rail, busses, ferries, light aircraft, blimps and hot-air balloons; variations on cast disposal: full-body mincing like cattle, dissolution in cauldrons of acid - chorus of autotuned medieval agony; remains pumped, carted, airlifted back in the direction from which the vehicles come. Roar of engine-Doppler in all directions.
'A volcano booms over the spectacle, its flare illuminating the blackened steel rigging of a cavernous warehouse. A billion helium-pitched screams knit into a continuous, wavering ring.
'The warehouse spectacle fizzes grey-white and fades to a purple-and-white text banner:
'YOU ASKED FOR THIS
'DONATE NOW'

An elaboration on the meaning and construction of this peace had to be relegated to the Google Doc.
So how can I actually benefit from this shit?
The chill thing about this style is it seems to be very intuitive to assimilate.
It's also highly likely that you're familiar with examples of it already.
The most obvious barrier is that of considering a style often encountered as part of a 'trash medium' - i.e. meme culture, to be off-limits for the purpose of literary prose. This barrier is easily enough surmounted by exposure to established prose using similar styles.
Copypasta as a style has one specific application I'd like to highlight, which applies as much to non-satirical prose as to satirical. This has to do with an alternative, but convergent definition of the word 'copy'.
'Copy', as in 'copywriting', refers often to non-literary body text suiting the demands of various industries, and informed by their best-practice guidelines. Legal copy, advertising copy, user-manual and hazard-warning copy, newsreel and documentary copy, academic and scientific writing, journalistic writing, political and economic commentary and rhetoric, jargon, vernacular, and so-on.
Where this converges with 'copypasta' is that the latter has often to do with imitating and parodying 'typical' styles. Performing this as an exercise is an excellent way of gaining an intuitive familiarity with the style and standards of an alternative way of writing, which for someone somewhere is enough of a first language that they can produce it on-demand.
Almost all dialogue and a significant portion of prose-writing involve at least some degree of voice-borrowing. As with languages, learning to borrow a new voice is markedly easier after one becomes familiar with the acquisition process. Accordingly, flippant pastiches of advertising copy may form an accessible steppingstone for writers attempting to develop the versatility of their voice.
If you are anxious to eliminate borrowed voices from your prose in an effort to approach pure self-expression, I refer you to this quotation from Rudyard Kipling:

'What should they know of England who only England know?'

The significance of this is that in stepping away from and back to your instinctive style, you may gain a crisper, more critical appreciation of what your habits actually are, and may return to their exercise with an improved sense of their strengths and avenues for expansion.

Dandelion: Chapter 2

[Beginning | Previously]
Dandelion master control center D.A.N.I.
DANI’s life was an endless stream of small tasks handled diligently and carefully, and that was how he liked it. His job was to look after a million people, after all; the last thing he wanted was to field a major crisis. Handling their messages, their grocery lists, their schedules, keeping an eye on their kids, and keeping the proper chemical balance in the ship’s huge algae-based air processors was hardly exciting, but it was satisfying. It fulfilled his purpose.
Such was the lot of intelligent software. The acronym D.A.N.I. stood for Dandelion Advanced Network Intelligence, and he was easily the smartest person on board, for certain very specific values of “smart,” “person,” and “on board.”
He was definitely a he. It didn’t matter much to DANI that, as software, the whole concept of gender shouldn’t technically apply to him. He was a he, and he didn’t care what anybody had to say about it. And if that wasn’t rational…well, you had to be a little irrational to be a person, and DANI was emphatically a person. They would never have installed him on the ship otherwise. But he had no body—at least, not in any sense a human would accept—just a series of holographic avatars he could manifest wherever there was a screen or holo-emitter to project them. He never slept, never dreamed, and would never taste a birthday cake, never compete in the fifty-meter dash, never enjoy sailing on Lake Dyson.
He was, in short, a person but not a human, and he could, when pressed, simultaneously monitor everybody on the ship and a billion other things besides. He always made special time for the captain, however. Even if she was just asking the same question for the sixth time in half an hour.
“Are they still on time?”
DANI rolled his metaphorical eyes and checked on the progress of a specific Ranger troop. There were hundreds of them out in the field for Turnover Day, but Captain Torres was paying special attention to the one currently climbing the forward slope of Mount Messier.
“Slightly ahead of schedule,” he reported.
Torres sighed and returned to the important business at hand. There wasn’t much for her to do. DANI handled most of the heavy lifting in terms of the ship’s administration, and under most circumstances, she served to advise the elected civilian council rather than make executive decisions. Nevertheless, hers was an important job, and in DANI’s opinion Amida Torres was perfectly suited to it. Regardless, he could tell she would sometimes have liked to be a Rangermaster like her husband.
On quiet days like today, part of DANI’s job was to keep her entertained.
“Do you have any…fours?” he asked.
“Go fish.”
It was a ridiculous game for the captain to play with the ship’s controlling software, but it was also the only one she stood a decent chance of winning. Chess and Go were absolutely not an option. The last time a human had legitimately beaten a computer at either game had been hundreds of years ago. Captain Banks had preferred poker, but Torres bluffed too aggressively and couldn’t hide her tells. She disliked board games, and DANI’s vastly superior reflexes precluded any competitive video games, though they sometimes played co-op.
This game, however, was a different matter. She had a statistically significant winning record against him that he just couldn’t figure out.
“Any Jacks?” She asked.
DANI cursed inwardly and their holographic game flashed as he delivered two carefully cultivated cards right into the captain’s hand. She grinned and laid four of them down on the table, increasing her lead.
“One of these days, I’ll figure out how you do that,” DANI promised.
“I just get these intuitions,” Torres replied. She put the game aside for a minute to answer a few messages, during which time DANI, among a thousand other things, reminded twenty people to go out for their daily jogs, discreetly cut the power to Mr. Hodder’s oven so his quiche wouldn’t burn while he napped, noted and logged a pothole on Riemann Street that needed repairs, and pinged the space around them with an active sensor sweep.
“I’m pleased to report the birth of a baby girl,” he said. The infant was even now being soothed in her mother’s arms, having entered the world barely thirty seconds earlier. Torres liked to hear of births the moment they happened. “Willow, daughter of Siân and Steve Wilde. Three point eight kilograms, an uneventful delivery and, I can attest, a very healthy set of lungs.”
Torres laughed. “Thanks, DANI…may I listen in?”
It took DANI a second to secure permission from the parents, and he watched with interest as Torres laid her chin dreamily on her palm and listened to the sounds of parents cooing over their newborn as she adjusted to the new, strange, bright world she found herself in.
Her own marriage was, and would forever be, childless.
“It’s funny to think there are kids being born now who won’t remember living on this ship,” Torres mused.
“I remember Jasmine Taylor saying something very similar two hundred and eighty-four years ago,” DANI recalled. Torres nodded. Everybody knew the name Adam Taylor, Jasmine’s son, the first human born aboard Dandelion.
“Let me know when Walker’s group makes camp,” she requested, and opened her paperwork. Even with DANI’s help, the captain’s job involved endless amounts of it, and some of it was not for his eyes, as it were. In fact, the captain’s quarters had a number of special security features installed specifically to limit what DANI could see and hear within them.
He didn’t mind. In fact, he’d recommended them.
“Of course. I presume you will want to listen in tonight as well?”
Torres smiled and nodded. “Yes, please. I always like listening to The Story…”
Amber Houston
The Story began, like all the best stories, with four of the most important words in English. “Once upon a time,” Walker intoned, “there were two farms in a valley.”
Amber smiled and held her soup mug between her hands, breathing in its rich scent. She’d heard the story a few times before, but it was special to her. It told her and the other Rangers they were special, and Walker had a way of telling it that made Amber believe it. She tilted her head back and looked upwards, imagining in the dark that the lights far above her were stars rather than streetlamps and vehicles.
It was a contrary twist of fate that, out of all the children in human history, the Rangers of Dandelion never had the opportunity to listen to a story under the stars. The sky and the stars were all on the other side of the ground, invisible behind a thousand meters of sculpted dirt and rock, the metal and circuitry of the hull, and Dandelion’s immense water tanks.
But there were fireflies and a campfire, and everybody was wrapped up in blankets and warming their hands with s’mores and soup mugs. With a little imagination, the towns and villages far above her became constellations in the dark.
It was good enough for Walker, anyway, who loved telling his story.
He never sat down to tell it. He always whirled around the fire, waved his hands, and sprang about on the balls of his feet. He told the same story every year on Turnover Day, while the other adults partied and danced and kissed where they thought their children couldn’t see. Rather than join them, he would bounce around and check that all the Rangers were wearing their uniforms and had packed their packs properly, before he lined them up on Sagan Plaza and marched them out into the biodeck for a few days of wilderness camping, physical training, and education.
Theirs was the generation that would land on Newhome and build a life there, after all, which meant they’d be the ones exploring a whole new planet, building settlements, planting crops, and laying the foundation for humanity to grow and flourish under an alien sun. They needed to know how to live in the wilderness, how to look after themselves, how to work together. Teaching them those skills was Walker’s job, alongside thousands of other Rangermasters, but Amber could tell his favorite duty by far was telling his stories. Especially this one.
“The two farmers had different ideas about how to look after their animals,” he continued. “One kept the animals in a barn, where they were warm, and snug, and safe. Whenever it rained, the animals were dry. Whenever it hailed, the animals were sheltered. When it got cold, they didn’t freeze. The animals were comfortable and happy, and the farmer brought their food right to them, so they got nice and fat.
“The other farm,” he went on, “had a different approach. They only brought their animals into the barn when they were sick or having a baby. Otherwise, they let them stay out in the field all the time. And yes, they got rained on, and yes, the hail stung their skin, and when it got cold, it wasn’t very nice for them, so maybe they weren’t the happiest animals ever…but they could live out there just fine. And as they ran around to stay warm in the cold, and walked around the paddock eating the grass, they got plenty of exercise, and they got big and strong and fit.”
He paused long enough for Amber and the McKay twins to share a knowing grin. They knew what came next. Completely without warning, Walker mimed a lightning bolt striking and made an explosive sound. The youngest kids, the ones who’d never heard the story before, all jumped. So did some of the Rangers who’d forgotten. The older ones, including Amber, laughed.
“One night a huge storm struck!” Walker waved his hands wildly, miming lightning striking over and over again. He puffed up his cheeks, blew air through his teeth to sound like the wind and the rain, and flung his arm out. “More rain fell that night than usually fell the whole year! The river burst its banks, and a flood came r-r-rampaging down the valley, tearing up trees and washing out the roads!”
He loved telling the story, and the youngest kids were completely hooked as he flailed around in the firelight, pantomiming the storm’s destruction.
“The farmers clung on for dear life! They prayed and held onto each other and couldn’t do anything at all for their animals, because if they went outside, they’d just be washed away! But they made it through. And in the morning, they went outside to see what was left.”
He calmed down and returned to a quieter speaking tone. “The barns were gone, swept away by the storm and splintered to matchwood. And of course, one farm had kept all their animals in their barn. All those fat, happy, well-fed animals had all been carried off by the water and were never found.
“The other farm, though, they went calling up and down the hills and searched the valley, and by the end of the day, they found their animals. They were soaked and shivering, and some of them were limping…but they were all alive. And because that farm and the other farm were good friends, they gave some of their animals to the other, and they both were able to keep living in the valley…”
He looked around at the Rangers with a knowing expression. “But I tell you what. After that night, both farmers kept their animals out in the field.”
He squatted down in front of the youngest Rangers. “Now,” he asked, “what’s the moral of that story? Or morals, there’s more than one.”
“Um…” The youngest Ranger was called Rose, and she was the first to put her hand up. “Don’t keep all your animals in one barn?”
Walker grinned. “Right!” he said. “We usually say ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket,’ but what it means is pretty simple. If you keep everything you have all in the same place, then if something happens to it, you’ve lost everything, right?”
The Rangers nodded and Walker stood up again. “I’ll come back to that. Any other morals?” he asked.
Another young Ranger put his hand up. “If somebody’s lost everything, you should help them?”
“Yeah, absolutely,” Walker agreed. “The survivors of a tragedy need to work together. But what did the farm that lost everything do after they were helped out?”
“They…changed what they were doing!”
“Exactly!” Walker gave the young Ranger a thumbs-up. “Learn from your mistakes. It’s okay to make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes! But try not to make the same one twice. Though mind you, if they’d just listened to the other farmers, maybe they wouldn’t have needed the help in the first place. So learn from other people, and try to think about what could go wrong, too. One more!”
The young ones looked nervously between themselves, so after a few seconds Walker raised his gaze and looked to the older ones at the back. “Guys?”
Amber knew this one. They all knew; it was the one Walker drummed into them every year. She joined in the chorus as they all repeated it back to him, loudly.
“Just because something makes you happy, doesn’t mean it’s good for you!”
“Outstanding!” Walker beamed at them. “Say it again, guys. You too.” He indicated the young ones, and they repeated the mantra twice.
“That is easily the most important one,” Walker told them once they’d finished. “We’re in a barn here, on Dandelion. And it’s a great barn! Clean water, good food, nice scenery, great people…it’d be all too easy to get lazy and comfortable like those animals in the story. So you need to remember to take yourself out into the field from time to time and do the stuff that, yeah, maybe isn’t as much fun, maybe doesn’t make you happy, but does make you better. Okay?”
He looked around, saw the nods, and smiled. “Anyway. I said I’d come back to the first point about not putting all your eggs in one basket, because that one’s relevant to Dandelion here.” He waved a hand around, gesturing to the whole ship. “We built her for a single important reason: to ensure the survival of the human race.”
He paced around the campfire as he spoke, waving a hand back toward the prow, in the vague direction of the homeworld the ship had left behind long before any of them were born.
“It’s a simple idea, really. The universe is a big and scary place, full of all sorts of dangers, just like the flood in that story. We know the Earth was struck by huge rocks called asteroids several times in its history, and every time it was bad. Millions of years ago there were creatures called dinosaurs, but they’re gone now. Wiped out by a hurtling space rock, completely at random. We knew it was only a matter of time before another one hit us, and if it was big enough…BOOM!”
He mimed an explosion again, the biggest one yet, and completely without warning this time. Even Amber jumped, and so did most of the older Rangers. Embarrassed laughter rippled around the campfire.
Walker joined in, but his expression soon grew somber again. “Imagine if that had happened,” he said. “That would have been it. There would be no humans anywhere. You could look across the whole universe and never find a human being. That’s kind of a sad thought, right?” He nodded, leading the Rangers to nod as well.
“Well, it nearly did.” He squatted down by the fire and poked it with a stick. “There was a war. The War. And by the end of it, there weren’t many humans left. Once, there were twenty billion of us, spread across the whole solar system. By the end…DANI says the high estimate is five hundred million.”
He let the fire crackle in silence for a few heartbeats so they could properly feel the weight of that thought. Amber couldn’t help it, she was entranced—she’d heard this tale several times before, and she’d read every book and article she could find about the War, but still…
She shivered.
“Dandelion and her sister ships are a simple idea,” Walker said, and stood up. “If you have humans living on two planets, if something happens to the first one, the second one will survive just fine. It’s highly unlikely for something bad to happen to two planets at once. And interstellar war? Impossible! It takes hundreds of years to get anywhere! So we built this ship and the others, and found a million people who were willing to leave home forever and travel between the stars until we found a new world to live on.”
He came back around to in front of the fire and stood tall, with his hands behind his back. “The objective: to save the human race and make sure, no matter what happens, our species will always be here. For as long as the universe lasts, we want there to be humans in it. That’s the practical reason, and it’s a big one. You young ones are carrying the future of our whole species on your backs.”
He looked around. Amber didn’t know how he made eye contact with each of them in just a second, but she felt certain that he did. He wasn’t just talking to them; he was talking to her.
Then the moment passed, and Walker’s sudden broad smile dispelled the serious mood. “But there’s one more reason,” he added cheerfully. “It’s maybe not as practical, but I sure like it a lot more. And that reason is the Rangers’ motto. Rangers!”
The older Rangers who knew how this went surged to their feet and faced him. The newcomers twisted around to look at them.
“What is our motto?” Walker called.
Amber joined in, shouting it out as loudly and proudly as she could.
“Because We Can!”
They went to bed late. There had been impromptu singing practice, plenty of hot food, and fireside relaxation. Walker sent the youngest kids to their tents once the story was done, but the older Rangers got to stay up a while longer and just…enjoy.
Naturally somebody had produced a rugby ball from somewhere, and naturally the team with Roy and Nikki on it had utterly flattened the other side, until somebody called “no fair” and insisted each team should have its own McKay.
The game became much more even-sided after that. Although Nikki was never going to be as strong as her brother, the two could never resist sparring, and they succeeded in canceling each other out. That left the rest of the squads on a roughly level footing, and an actual contest battled back and forth around them for the next hour, refereed by Walker.
Amber wasn’t built for rugby. She watched from the sidelines and enjoyed the spectacle while reading on her U-Tool. DANI had recommended she read more fiction and pointed her toward a twentieth century novel about magical children.
She got about halfway through before the game ended in a narrow victory for Nikki’s team, and Amber had the pleasure of sharing a tent with her afterwards. Nikki was a kinetic and hard-working type who didn’t bother with frilly stuff like scented soaps, but she never smelled offensive to Amber…just earthy and sporty. Strongly so, after a long day of exercise and several dirt naps.
Of course, there were other hazards to sharing a small tent with a McKay than whatever aromas she’d picked up during the day. No sooner was Amber in her sleeping bag and getting her head down than she was being pulled into an iron cuddle.
“C’mere, dork.”
Amber sighed around the tired smile that spread across her face. “You can never just let me sleep, can you?”
“D’you want me to?” Nikki checked.
“No.”
“Awesome. You’re my teddy bear now.”
Amber giggled and wriggled backwards into her. Both twins—the whole McKay family, in fact—were big, booming, relentless personalities, and close physical affection for them was like water to a fish. They hugged freely, kissed often, and liked nothing more as a family than bundling up in one cozy, intimate pile on the couch after a hard day. Most people found them overwhelming; Amber envied them.
“What gives with calling me a dork, though?” she asked.
Nikki snuggled up closer and ruffled the dense, curly mass of Amber’s hair affectionately. “You are a dork,” she said. “My most favoritest dork. All getting into the story and singing the songs and the Because We Can stuff…super dorky.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Amber griped defensively.
“Who said there’s anything wrong with being dorky? Dorky suits you.”
“Fine. But you’re a jock.”
She heard Nikki grin. “That’s me!”
Amber laughed and relaxed. In fact, she’d had a great time today. Hiking, camping, water fights, spending time with her friends, being used as an over-loved cuddly toy…She let out a long sigh and put her head down. She needed days like these.
Nikki, however, was not an irredeemable meathead like her brother, as much as she pretended to be sometimes. She let a comfortable silence descend before broaching the subject that was on her mind. “Seriously though, you were being really…uh…I dunno. Earnest today, I guess. Is everything okay at home?”
Amber stared into the almost-dark for a few seconds before replying. There was still a faint orange-ish campfire glow flickering on the tent fabric in front of her.
“…No,” she confessed. “Not really.”
“Your mum and dad are fighting again, huh?”
“Fighting again?” Amber snorted. “I wasn’t aware they’d stopped.”
Nikki paused, then hugged her a little tighter.
“You know you can always come ‘round our place when things get too bad…”
“I know, but…” Amber sighed. “The way things have been lately, I may as well just move in permanently.”
“What’s so bad about that?”
“It’d make trouble for your parents. The occasional sleepover is one thing, but moving out to stay with you? You don’t deserve my family’s drama.”
“We’ve talked about it with mum and dad, you know. They’d be willing.”
“That’s nice, but…” Amber trailed off, not knowing how to finish the thought.
After a few silent seconds, Nikki squeezed her again. “Well. You have three whole days away from your folks and their fightin’. And it’s no problem. We all love it when you visit. You make the house feel…I dunno. Complete.”
“Mm.” Amber closed her eyes. She had no idea who’d started the war between her parents, and frankly she doubted even they knew by now. She hadn’t heard them exchange a genuinely warm word in months. On good days they were just kind of…polite to each other. On bad days…well, Petra and Dan McKay kept blankets and an inflatable mattress for her.
She’d given up on crying about her parents’ feud, though. Crying didn’t make her feel any better, and it didn’t fix the problem. And the fact was, she had good friends and a haven to escape to. Things could have been much worse.
“It’d be nice,” she admitted. “No shouting, no swearing, no breaking plates…” She was an only child, and the twins were practically her brother and sister anyway. It’d be nice to have a happy home for a change. Her mother’s idea of intimacy was to brush her hair, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d hugged her dad.
Living full-time with the McKays would probably be exhausting next to that, and it’d certainly take some adjusting to…but it was a nice fantasy. There were far worse things in the world than being hugged halfway to death by her best friends.
She sighed and relaxed, and didn’t notice how quickly she fell asleep.
Morning, when it arrived, came in the form of Roy slapping their tent flap and then unzipping it. Cold blue light streamed in and zapped both sleeping girls right in the eyes, causing them to groan and flinch.
“Rise and shine!”
Nikki aimed a kick at him. He’d obviously come straight from a morning swim in the lake: he was only wearing his briefs, and his wet hair dripped cold water all over everything, including their feet.
“Hey! Cold!” Amber protested and drew her foot in like a turtle.
“Come on, we’re not here to laze around in bed all day!” He grinned and shook his head like a spiteful dog.
Amber squeaked and shielded herself, while Nikki launched herself at him like a vengeful missile. There weren’t many people who could knock Roy off his feet, and Nikki didn’t manage it that time, either; instead she earned a hip toss that would have left anyone else winded and stunned. She rolled through it, sprang to her feet, and launched herself right back at him.
There was a blur of frenetic activity that Amber had trouble following, and the twins tumbled backwards out of the tent and onto the grass, where some of the other early-rising Rangers made alarmed noises and got out of their way.
“You jerk! And put some clothes on!”
“Make me!”
Anyone else and it would have been a serious brawl, but for them it was practically gentle. The twins played rough with each other, probably because they couldn’t play so hard with anyone else.
“Just ‘cuz you wanna show off—!”
“So what?”
Right, so that was the mood he was in this morning—spiky and uncontained.
“Maybe you should both put some clothes on,” Amber suggested, raising her voice enough for it to cut through the melee. The twins paused mid-scuffle and looked at her. Both had slept in their underwear, and Nikki had somehow wound up kneeling on Roy’s chest. He was probably letting her win like he usually did and seemed hugely amused at the entire game.
Roy cleared his throat. “Mine’re drying on the rocks because somebody tripped me while I was at a dead run, and they’ve got a big green grass stain on them now!”
“Mine are muddy, too,” Nikki confessed.
“Shoulda washed them, then,” Roy informed her. “That mud’s gonna itch and you’re gonna whine about it all day!”
“Why do you care? You trying to impress some girl?”
“Walker says a man should always dress for success,” Roy intoned seriously. He was so earnest about Walker-wisdom sometimes, it was almost comedic. “And you never know, maybe I am!”
“Didn’t you bring spares?” Amber asked, before they could start tumbling again. “You’re supposed to have three shirts in your pack.”
“I had three shirts,” Roy sulked quietly. “Somebody”—he swatted his sister’s arm— “ripped one of ‘em in half yesterday in rugby, and I need to make the other two last.”
Amber pinched the bridge of her nose. A Ranger’s uniform was tough and hard-wearing, designed to ward off thorns, and even help protect from animal attacks like snake bites. They were strong enough to use as rope, and so densely woven they could filter water.
“How,” she demanded, “did you manage to tear up a Ranger shirt? That’s rip-stop fabric. You could tow a car with it!”
“Girl power!” Nikki beamed and flexed her arm impressively.
Roy snorted. “Yuh-huh. You didn’t manage to get me off my feet! What a waste.”
“Oh please, you loved it. How else are you gonna show everyone who’s boss?”
He grinned smugly, and Amber sensed he was about to turn the tables, but she’d had enough. “Nikki! Clothes. Now,please.”
“Right, right…” Nikki crawled back into the tent.
“You too,” Amber told Roy, who grumbled half-heartedly, effortlessly kipped himself up with a thud that could be felt through the ground, then charged back down to the lake. He’d just have to endure wet clothes for now, but she doubted he’d mind. They’d dry out soon enough anyway; DANI always laid on hot weather for Turnover Day weekend.
“Big green stain…yeah, right…” Nikki grumbled. “The whole shirt’s green anyway! How’s anyone gonna notice?”
“I think he meant his trousers, actually.”
“Oh. Still. Wait, then why was he up here prancing around in his underwear?”
Amber opened her own pack and retrieved one of her shirts. Hers, unlike Nikki’s, were neatly and properly rolled in the bottom of the bag. Nikki’s looked like they’d been shoved in there any old how. “Same reason you launched at him in your own underwear. You two have no sense of propriety.”
“That’s just a fancy word for ‘cares too much about stupid rules,’” Nikki griped, wriggling into her shorts.
“Not…really. It means you don’t respect certain boundaries. Which I love about you two,” Amber added hastily, “but people who don’t know you think you’re feral.”
“Well, they should get to know us, then.” Nikki finished doing up her buttons and rolled out through the tent flap. “Hurry up, I think Walker brought real bacon.”
“Don’t let Roy hear that, he’ll eat half of it before we get there!” Amber scrambled to finish getting dressed.
“Not if I get there first!”
Grinning to herself, Amber climbed out of the tent, finished doing up her belt, and stooped to the task of putting on her boots.
Her troubles were, for now, quite forgotten.
Did you enjoy it? As I said at the beginning, we intend to publish the entire story free-to-read over the coming months. That said, if you're impatient…

You could order the eBook from Amazon, and skip the wait. There's a hardcover and paperback version available too. It's also available from Indiebound, Barnes and Noble, and can be ordered at any local bookstore by ISBN: 978-17358787-0-6 for the hardcover, 978-17358787-2-0 if you prefer paperback.

In any case, we're simply happy to share the story with you, and we think you'll like it very much indeed. And if you'd like just a little bit of a tease…things get really interesting at the end of chapter three…
Anyway. Thank you very much for your attention and time. It means a lot to me, it really does.
Thank you.
[To Chapter 3, Pt I]

Ahmadi Women and the Public Space

The Cruise

Something happened to me six months ago that I need to get off my chest. You see I used to be a fisherman of sorts. I didn't do it for a living. It was more for recreation than anything else. After what else I saw, however, I won't go back out to sea for as long as possible.

It began like all my other trips. I got in my boat and rode it towards my usual spot. There, I could fish uninterrupted without hearing the obnoxious sound of teenagers on boats. Not to mention, other fishermen or those yuppie assholes on their yachts. Anyway, it wasn't long into my trip when the weather started changing.

It looked as though a storm was brewing up. Obviously, this worried me. I always made sure to check the weather before heading out. It said absolutely nothing about a storm in the area. Realizing this, I proceeded to head back to shore. Unfortunately, fate had other plans.

"God damn it,” I said to myself while attempting to steer the boat towards the shore.

As I did a huge wave kicked up. The next thing I knew, my boat got overturned and I found myself underwater. I tried staying above water. With the waves being so rough, though it didn’t seem like I’d be able to for very long. What I thought was my saving grace appeared over the waves.

Through the flashes of lighting, I saw it. A massive ship came over the roaring waves. It looked to be some kind of cruise ship. I yelled as loud as I could for them to notice me. They threw me a life preserve which I eagerly grabbed hold of.

“He seems delirious. Get him a towel.”

It’s difficult to describe the voice I heard. It definitely sounded English. However, it didn’t sound organic. It was like hearing someone American do a really good imitation of that accent. I brushed off this abnormality and thanked my saviors.

“Oh, man. I thought I was a goner,” I said, rubbing the water from my eyes. “Thanks for the help.”

The blurriness went away, allowing me to see who I presumed to be the captain, judging by his outfit colored a bright gold. Standing beside him were two of his crewmates. I had been led inside the ship to a guest room. Only the captain talked with me while they remained silent.

“It’s not a problem,” he smiled. “But to whom do I owe this pleasure to?”

He was a tall man. I’d say, he stood at about 7”. He had perfectly combed blonde hair and bright golden eyes that lit up when he smiled.

“Cody. What should I call you?”

“Most just call me captain but you may refer to me as Rupin. Now, would you mind explaining why you were out here in the midst of such harsh weather?”

I leaned back against the wall and briefly summarized my reason for being out there.

“I see. That’s a real shame. It’s to be expected, though. I’ve spent many years on the sea and I can tell you that it’s full of surprises. A lot of which aren’t pleasant. Anyway, I imagine you’re quite chilly. Would you like something to warm you up? The guests are getting ready to dine right now.”

“Thank you but aren’t we close to shore? It isn’t a long walk from there to my car and I’d hate to intrude.”

“Not to worry. You aren’t overstaying your welcome if that’s what you’re thinking. Besides, the weather’s still too rough for us to go anywhere. We’re anchored down right now, but once the weather is clear, we’ll pull the anchor up and head back to shore to drop you off at the doc.”

“Okay. It can’t be helped I guess. It’s weird, though. I was at the docs pretty early and I don’t recall seeing you guys pull up there.”

“It must not have been on our route then.”

He glanced at his watch.

“Sorry to cut this short but there are other matters on the ship that require my attention.”

“Alright. Do you mind if I explore the ship?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t. Some parts of the ship can be hazardous..”

He then tossed me a key with the number ten imprinted into it.

“What’s this for?”

“It’s to this room in case you decide to stay a little longer. We wouldn’t mind if you do. The more the merrier, as they say. Come upstairs when you’re ready to sit with us.”

He then turned and began walking away along with his crew members. Although I couldn’t explain it at the time, part of what he said rubbed me the wrong way. I ignored this oddity. Then got dressed. The clothes I put on felt wrong somehow in a way I couldn’t explain.

After the adrenaline of my near-drowning wore off, I had worked up quite the appetite. I proceeded to make my way there when someone got my attention. I felt someone grab my wrist. I jumped and looked back to see a distressed-looking man. He had the appearance of someone not of sound mind yet hiding it because he’s afraid of what’ll happen to him if he doesn’t.

“You said your name’s Cody, right?” He asked in a gruff voice.

From his uniform, I could tell he must be a grunt worker, the kind who does a lot of heavy lifting. His grip tightened on my arm. The way he looked unnerved me.

“Yeah...Do you need something?” I asked, trying to keep from sounding nervous.

“I wanted to warn you before it’s too late. Leave this ship and don’t look back.”

His words puzzled me.

“Why?”

“This place ain’t what it seems.”

“What does that mean?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t have time to give you the full story. I need to get back to work before they realize I’m gone. All I can say is that this ship appears different to each person. If you value your life and freedom you’ll heed my advice.”

My first thought upon hearing this was that this guy did not have it all together mentally. The next one that entered my head involved all the horror movies I’ve seen. In particular, I thought about the ones where someone tries to warn others about danger but nobody listens. This wasn’t a movie though, this was real life. Still, I figured I should at least inquire about some things from the man.

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. Let’s say I needed to make it to a lifeboat, though. Where would I find one?”

“The promenade deck. It’s near the font of the ship. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

He turned and began walking away. Then paused and looked back.

“Oh yeah. I almost forgot. Don’t eat or drink anything here and don’t dance.”

With that, he continued down the hall and eventually left my sight. I spent a moment considering what he said. The ship appearing suddenly in the midst of the storm certainly did seem odd. However, as I said the weather was too dangerous for me to leave at the time. Besides that, I didn’t really feel as though I was in any sort of immediate danger so I headed to the dining room.

The brightness of it caused me to squint my eyes. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling. For some reason, I couldn’t help but get an uneasy feeling from looking at them. The way they swayed back and forth reminded me of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I remembered what the man had said and wondered what he saw whenever he went into the dining room.

“Cody.”

Rupin saying my name, snapped me out of my thoughts. He sat at a table. With him were people dressed in clothes that I guessed were pretty expensive. I’ll admit I’m not exactly the most eloquent person when it comes to social gatherings. Nonetheless, I tried to behave as best I could when I’m in those kinds of situations.

“Have a seat.”

A chair near the captain was pulled out for me. It felt really comfortable to sit in. Again, though I felt that something was off. I monetarily forgot about this when the banquet got out in front of us. Mouthwatering doesn’t begin to describe this food. I swear I could hear angelic singing and see a golden aura around the food as they set it out.

While they did I looked around in order to see who else was seated at the other tables. The diners were very diverse. They included people of all races. This didn’t strike me as unusual until they began speaking with each other. All of them spoke in different languages which told me they were from different regions.

“Rupin?” I said.

He was busy chatting with someone about some music he hadn’t heard in a while. I think he mentioned it being from a Chinese play. He paused and faced me.

“Yes, Cody. Is there something I can help you with?”

“I just noticed that a lot of the people here seem to be from different countries. Would you mind telling me exactly how they came to be on this ship?’

I thought I saw a hint of annoyance come over him before it vanished as quickly as it came. He smiled and responded to my question.

“Well, you see, this cruise is very exclusive. Only a select few know about it and they come from all over in order to attend it.”

“It must be pretty expensive I imagine.”

“You’d be correct on that. As our motto on this ship says though, happiness is worth the price. Now, why don’t you enjoy some of this food?”

I was about to when I remembered what the man had said but didn’t understand why I shouldn’t eat the food. It seemed fine to me and yet I couldn’t shake off this uneasy feeling.

“Is there something wrong?” Rupin frowned.

He stared at me and so did everyone else at the table. This caused me to become nervous.

“Sorry. It’s just that I’m still a little shaken up about what happened. I don’t really have an appetite right now,” I replied to him.

“Ah. I see. No rush then. It’s not as if the food is going anywhere,” he chuckled.

What I said hadn’t been entirely true. Although I was indeed shaken up, my appetite had skyrocketed at the sight of the food. I wanted so badly to satisfy my ravenous appetite yet something wouldn’t permit me to. It felt as if some kind of instinct was preventing me from indulging in the food.

“Why don’t I want to eat any of this food?” I wondered. “Maybe it’s just the situation. After all, I’ve never been on a cruise before. Yeah, that must be it.”

I grabbed a fork and was about to eat my meal which was lobster dinner. The lobster sounded off. What do I mean by that? Well, you know how when you eat lobster it cracks open? It did.

However, it almost sounded as though the cracking was coming from somewhere else. The best way I can think to explain it is you ever watch a video where the sound isn’t quite in sync? It’s kind of like that.

“Am I going crazy?” I thought.

I hoped that nobody took notice of my nervousness. I couldn’t help it. When I thought of all the events that occurred starting with the storm, nothing added up. The weather had been clear save for some clouds. Then suddenly a huge storm appeared out of nowhere.

Now, I was sitting in a dining room with people of varying nationalities. These people, I should remind you apparently traveled across the world just to attend the cruise. One which Rupin told me is really exclusive and not many people know about. Once again my mind flashed back to what the man said. If it was true and he wasn't delusional then what is the ship's true appearance?

These thoughts among others bounced around in my head. Then I got an idea. I turned back to Rupin. He was enjoying some wine and calamari. He took notice of me looking at him.

"Is there something you need, Cody?"

"Would you mind if I talked with some of the other passengers? I figured with people of so many nationalities here, it'd be a good opportunity to learn more about different cultures."

"That's an excellent idea. As a matter of fact, I’ve always been of the belief that the best way to learn about one’s culture is through their music.”

Rupin stood up from his seat. Nobody asked him where he was going so I inquired about it. He smiled again while straightening his jacket.

“I’m going to play for everyone.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes. During my travels, I’ve been fortunate enough to hear the works of musicians from all over and have become a bit of one myself.”

“What kind of music can you play?”

“You’re about to find out.”

Talented didn't begin to describe Rupin’s musical ability. The best way I can describe it is, angelic. Despite the fact, all of the songs he performed were in languages I couldn’t understand, I felt so relaxed while listening to him. Then I got a feeling similar to how I felt while looking at the food. Even though I wanted to tap my foot rhythmically to Rupin music, my body wouldn’t let me.

“This is the second time I’ve gotten this feeling. What the hell is going on?” I thought.

I looked around the room again to observe the other patrons. They had this weird gleam in their eyes. It looked to me as if they were in some kind of trance. I know this isn’t too unusual for say, a concert. It’s easy for people to get swept up in good music.

However, what unnerved me is the fact they were able to sing along with him the lyrics of every song. I don’t mean it like they just mouthed the words either. I distinctly remember hearing them sing in sync with him. That caused a knot to start forming in my stomach. If it was just one or two songs I wouldn’t have noticed it, but many were sung, and they all sang to them perfectly.

“How long have these people been here?” I asked myself.

I also wondered how long they’d need to have been there to learn the lyrics of every song. Granted, it probably wouldn’t be too difficult for the people who understood the lyrics. The peculiarity is with the fact these people who as far as I could tell didn’t speak multiple languages, knew them inside and out. I got a strong feeling I should leave the dining room. Then get to one of the lifeboats and use it to get away from the ship.

I didn’t want to just abruptly stand up and leave due to my fear of drawing attention to myself. While everyone allowed themselves to get wrapped up in it, I took the opportunity to slip away. I remembered where the man had told me the lifeboats were kept and headed there or at least that’s what I planned on doing. Much to my dismay, though I found that the doors leading to the outer deck were locked. I cursed and frantically pushed on them in hopes that they would somehow come open.

When that didn’t work I thought my next course of action would be to find that man again. He had insisted that I get off the ship. I figured he might have some keys to the door or a way to get outside. In case you’re wondering, I did try some windows. Unfortunately, they were also locked and not made out of regular glass which caused my efforts of breaking them to be futile.

I went back downstairs to search for him. I didn’t see him at first. That changed when I went further down the hall. I saw a door that was ajar. I went through it. At first, it just appeared to be a storage room.

Crates were stacked against the wall. Nothing seemed out of place there until I heard a noise. It was a rhythmic hum. Curious, I followed it and my mouth fell open when I saw its source. I found a large hole between the crates.

The edges of it were jagged, almost resembling teeth. A purple light shone from it that almost seemed to pulse. I found something mesmerizing about it, as though finding what made it would reveal some hidden truth. Apprehension caused me to be hesitant about going into it. I got over this, figuring that if I wanted to leave I’d have to take my chances with it.

Going into the hole, took me to a corridor. I felt air on me coming from vents. The more I walked through it, the less it felt like air coming out of the vents, and the more it felt like some enormous creature was breathing on me. Sweat began to drip down my face. I knew that I needed to find the man as soon as possible.

“What is this place?” I murmured.

The walk down the corridor felt unusually long. I thought I’d never find anyone until I heard the sound of heavy objects being moved. At last, I spotted the man moving something. Creates weren’t things he moved. Instead, what he moved seemed to be large burlap sacs.

“Hey,” I whispered to him, prompting him to run around.

“You,” he said in a matter of fact tone.

“What is this place really and can you help me get out of here?”

“To answer your first question, I’m not sure. To answer your second, I can.”

“You have a key to unlock the doors then?”

He shook his head.

“I’m afraid not but I know another way out. Follow me. Whatever you do, though don’t touch the engine.”

He led me further down. Pained groans echoed throughout the area.

“What is that?” I nervously asked.

“Just ignore them. You don’t want them to find you here especially when they’re hungry.”

I said nothing as we walked. The purple light faded and lit up again in repetition. The area housed many doors. Shadows spilled under them that were only vaguely humanoid in appearance. From what I could see, the shapes had characteristics of arachnid and deep-sea creatures.

I tried holding my breath as we moved along, out of fear it would somehow draw their attention to me. The man didn’t seem bothered, as if he’d been on the ship too long to care. The air in that area had an alien taste to it. I can’t really explain it fully. The best way I can is, imagine the salty taste of the sea with a metallic hint to it.

“We’re almost there,” the man informed me.

“Why are you going out of your way to help me anyway?” I whispered in response.

“I’ve been on this ship long before you were born. It’s not a fate I’d wish on m anyone.”

“How old are you exactly?”

“I can’t really tell you that. After a while here you tend to lose your sense of time. All I can say is that I came to be here during the 1800s.”

“The...1800s?”

My voice was hoarse as I spoke the words.

“Aye. I used to be a man of the Navy. One day a storm came along and destroyed our ship. Only I survived. I would’ve drowned if Rupin hadn't come along. Honestly, that would’ve been preferable.”

“What’s wrong with this place?”

“The less you know of it, the better.”

At last, we arrived at the engine room. The way it sounded had an eerie similarity to a heartbeat.

“Alright. Do you see that vent over there?”

“Yeah.”

“Crawling through it will lead you outside. You can handle the rest from there.”

He opened it for me.

“Why don’t go through them?”

He gave me a weak grin.

“I’ve been here too long. Now go.”

“And why would he want to do that, Frank?”

Rupin's voice echoed throughout the room. Frank, whose name I only learned about then became pale with worry. Parts of the room began twisting and warping until they formed openings. From them emerged Rupin along with some of his crewmates. He smiled yet his golden eyes flared as though a fiery rage burned inside him.

“Run, Cody,” Frank shouted.

I attempted to jump into the vent. As I did, I felt someone pull me back and throw me to the floor hard. Rupin grinned down at me so wide I wondered how his face didn’t split open. Some of his crewmates blocked the exits.

“Cody, I’m disappointed in you. I saved your life and you repay me by attempting an Irish goodbye?”

“You aren’t human. Are you?” I replied with a stutter

“Whatever gave that away?” Rupin smirked.

He turned to Frank who had been grabbed by his other crewmates.

"Frank," he tisked. “Must we go through this again? I thought for sure after last time, you learned your lesson. I guess our reeducating wasn’t as effective as we thought. No matter, I have a new song I’ve been meaning to share with you.”

Frank struggled futility to get free.

“No, don’t,” he begged.

Rupin took a deep breath. Although the effect of his song will no doubt haunt me for the rest of my life and possibly long after I can’t recite it here. The reason I can’t is due to the fact the language he sang in could not possibly be spoken by human lips. My mind outright refuses to recall even one lyric of his song. All I can remember of it is that it sounded like some enormous and ancient beast was singing it.

Bloody tears began streaming down Frank’s face. Rupin’s crewmates were no longer holding him. It seemed as though Rupin’s singing had put him under some kind of trance. He moaned and his body convulsed akin to someone having a seizure. My vision started doubling as I continued listening to the song.

I felt weak and needed to lean on the wall for support. Rupin turned and faced me. His appearance had changed. His eyes were brighter and his teeth had become pointed. I stumbled forward and threw my arms out to catch myself. I ended up touching the engine.

When I did, a white-hot shocking pain shot through my arms. I cried out and stumbled back. The room changed again. The area seemed to melt away, revealing walls of golden flesh. The walls were covered in multi-shaped eyes that flashed with various pulsing colors.

"Cody, you should've been more careful. You touched my heart."

"Your heart?"

I looked at the engine and saw that it had changed into a giant pulsing heart. It glowed with that same purple light I saw earlier.

“I hope you don’t mind the changes your clothes have taken on as well.”

“What?”

I glanced down at myself. To my horror, the clothes that Rupin gave to me were now made of human skin. I screamed and tugged at them frantically to remove them. Rupin laughed as I did.

“You’re fucking sick,” I yelled at him which he only rolled his eyes at.

“That’s a trait of humans I’ve always despised. You all think you’re the sole arbiters of morality. I know it can't be helped, though. Your short life spans and weak minds are to blame but enough of that. You have bigger things to worry about such as, how the others have changed.”

He pointed to his crewmates and frank. Where they once stood were humanoid hybrids of arachnids and sea creatures. The only thing human about them were their eyes. They were filled with so much pain and Frank now smiled. When Rupin stopped, they stood motionless with terrified smiles still on their faces.

“What the hell are you?” I asked Rupin.

“Isn’t that the million-dollar question?” He laughed. “I’ll be happy to fill you in once you’re part of my crew. What I will tell you to satisfy some of your curiosity is that back home, I’m known as “The Entertainer”. Now, are you going to join us willingly? I really hate to use force. I just don’t see it as being very sportsmanlike.”

I waited a moment before replying.

“What does joining you entail?”

Rupin perked up more at that.

“Well, all you have to do is either dance to my music or consume my food. If you do this, you’ll be under my control. However, you’ll also spend eternity and beyond as part of my audience. You’ll enjoy yourself in ignorant bliss. That is if you don’t try to struggle. If you do, you’ll end up like Frank there. You’ll work to maintain my body. I’ll only allow you fleeting moments of free will just so you can always re-experience the pain of having it taken away. Now that you know all this, what will you choose?”

I thought for a moment.

“Since I don’t want to be stuck down here forever I’ll eat something in order to stay on the upper decks.”

Rupin grinned brightly.

“Excellent. I’ll provide that to you right away.”

He then turned to the others and ordered them to bring me something from upstairs. Little did he know I had swiped a knife from upstairs and put it in my pocket. While his attention was diverted I pulled it out. It too had changed. What was once a piece of dazzling silverware was now a worm-like creature with a sharpened bone sticking out of it.

My stomach wretched as it squirmed slightly in my hand. I did my best to ignore this as Rupin turned back to me. When he did, I brought up my weapon and stabbed it into his eye, causing a wet plopping sound. He stumbled back and started howling with laughter. To my horror, it hadn’t hurt him in the slightest.

“Cody, did you honestly think you’re the first person to try something like this?”

He pulled the thing from his eye. An empty socket with blood dripping from it looked back at me. Rupin took out a handkerchief from his coat and wiped the blood away from his eye socket with it. When he put it away, I saw that a new eye had grown in place of the one I stabbed out. At that moment, I thought I was done for.

My knees felt weak at the prospect of being enslaved on that ship. Rupin ordered that I be grabbed and taken to the upper deck. As the others started walking towards me, I searched desperately for some way to escape. At that moment, fortune smiled upon me. A massive wave hit the side of the ship.

This resulted in everyone losing their balance. Prior to that, some crew members were blocking the vent. I did not waste a second in getting back to my feet as the ship rocked back and forth. I leaped towards it. Luckily I managed to grab hold of it.

“No,” Rupin yelled. “After him.”

His voice took on the same warped quality as that song I mentioned. Due to the ship leaning towards one side I slid through the vent with ease. I made it to the outer deck that had also changed. It had become coated in coarse golden fur. I dashed toward where Frank mentioned the lifeboats were. Oddly enough, they looked pretty normal aside from the fact I could see them breathing.

I started towards one. Before I could reach it, the floor in front of me started rippling. From it, Rupin rose. He smiled wide yet his eyes conveyed an intense rage. His crewmates and Franklin appeared on the outer deck in the same way as he did.

“Shit, “ I said, distraught I had come so close to escaping only for it to be ripped away from me.

Rupin made a shrill clicking noise. In response to that, the others started to shamble in my direction. Their eyes told me they wanted me to help them. I really wish I could have.

"Cody, even among my kind I'm considered a god. Do you really think you have any chance of escape?"

He started singing in that haunting language again. Out of reflex, I brought my hands up to cover my ears. Despite that, I could still hear Rupin. Once again my vision started getting blurry. His claims of being a god were not hyperbolic.

The weather raged around us. It became even more intense than when it overturned my boat. In that instant, I realized that Rupin was the one responsible for the storm in the first place. My legs threatened to collapse under me at any time. On the verge of passing out, I mentally said my prayers until once again I got lucky.

That's the understatement of the century. I glanced back at the ocean. It was so I could take in what I thought would be my last bit of true freedom. Among the roaring waves, I saw it. My boat rocked back and forth by some miracle not turning over and becoming lost to the ocean.

I couldn't believe it. Rupin couldn’t see the boat from where he stood. However, he did notice my change of expression. He made a shrill clicking noise The others returned it and ran at me.

Using the last of my strength, I hoisted myself over the railing. The shocking coldness I felt upon going into the water below removed the fatigue I had been previously experiencing. I swam towards my boat as Rupin started yelling. I thought for sure he’d order his crewmates to jump after me. Instead, I was able to reach my boat and luckily it started right up.

I can’t describe how much more revolting the water caused the skin suit I had on to feel. I desperately wanted to remove it right then and there but my main priority was getting away from the ship. Then getting back to land afterward. As I rode away I glanced back at the cruise ship. What I saw when I did made my breath stop.

Had it not been for a fog coincidentally appearing to partially obscure my vision from it, I would not be coherent enough to type this up. Among the fog, the ship loomed. By now, I’m sure you can tell it wasn’t really a ship at all. However, I've still referred to it as such for the sake of convenience. Golden fur covered it.

The eyes I mentioned before were also on the outside of it. There were too many to count. All of them glared down at me. Rupin did as well from the railing, only for a second. His smile returned brighter than ever.

“It’s a real shame you’re leaving, Cody,” he called out. “You don't need to worry, though. I’ll be sure to keep in touch.”

Rupin made a noise akin to static. My mouth jaw dropped at what happened next. Feathery rainbow-colored wings emerged from the ship. With one flap of its wings, a colossal wave got sent towards my boat. My efforts to get away from it were fruitless.

The last thing I saw before everything went black is the ship ascending to the sky and disappearing into a brilliant flash of light. I came to some time later in a hospital. Apparently, I had crashed back to shore. In the process, my boat was destroyed and I somehow lost my clothes. If that wasn’t bad enough, the impact of the landing broke my leg.

On the bright side, it did save me the trouble of removing those clothes. When I got home I found something on my kitchen table. It turned out to be a wedding invitation written in gold lettering. My first instinct upon seeing it was to not read it and throw it away. I ended up deciding against that.

I figured that it couldn’t hurt to look at the message it held. To summarize what it said, it invited me to a wedding in a town which I will not state the name of here. This may come as a shock but I didn’t attend it and I have moved to a new place since this all happened. If you’re wondering how he got the invitation into my home, I’m just as clueless as you are and I’m not sure I want to know. To conclude this post I will share what it said with certain information omitted.

Hello, Cody, I hope you are doing well. I must admit I was very disappointed you had to leave the party early. That doesn’t really matter, though because I have another event for you to attend. I’m sure you gathered from looking at this card’s cover that the event in question is a wedding. It will be held in a town called (redacted).

I hope you can attend. It would be nice to see a familiar face. After all, I would love to take you back to my party. If you do choose to go I will be under another name. You will find it under this message.

Sincerely,

Aron Ubella

P.S. I have so much more music I want to share with you.

Some stats on how the silent e rule is so inconsistent!

Long and short a, e, i, o, u
Doubled consonants are supposed to show when the letters a, e, i, o, u in words of more than one syllable have a short sound, as in matter, hemmed, hidden, dotty, tubby, rather than long, as in mate, theme, hide, dote, tube. When followed by just one consonant, or several consonants and a vowel, a, e, i, o, u are meant to be 'closed' , with a short sound, as in: am, ample; ten, tender; pin, pinked; pond ponder; bun bunker.
When followed by a single consonant and a vowel, they are ‘open’ and meant to be long; male, halo; peter, period; fine, final; sole, solo; tube, tubular'.
If a stressed short vowel before a single consonant and another vowel is to be short, or is to stay short, it should be followed by a doubled consonant: allergy, petty, Finnish, dolly, butter.
Schoolchildren spend much time learning to apply this rule when adding suffixes to short words: cut + er → cutter, prefer + ed → preferred; but: cute + er→ cuter, enter +ed → entered.
Sadly, at least 1,700 words of more than one syllable disobey the ‘closed /short' - 'open / long’ vowel system in 5 ways: 1. At least 567 common words fail to double the consonant after a short, stressed vowel, e.g. 'habit, very, similar, body, study'. 2. 219 words have needlessly doubled consonants after unstressed vowels, e.g. 'account, terrific, immense, occur, hurrah', undermining their regular use, as in: accurate, terror, simmer, occupy, hurry. 3. Nearly 200 words end with a surplus –e: (give, promise – cf.spiv drive; surprise tennis). 4. Around 200 words have irregular spellings for a, e, i, o and u (plait, bread, pretty, cough, touch), sometimes with missing doubled consonants as well (many, women, sausage, money). 5. At least 665 words do not use the long vowel method, of 'male, mere, mile, mole, mule': 87 for long a (late - wait, straight, eight), 373 long e (eke – seek, speak, shriek) - [e-e is used just in 86 words], 79 long i (while - style, whilst, island, height), 100 long o (mole – bowl, roll, soul), 26 long u (use - youth, juice, feud, lewd, beauty, Tuesday). All common words affected by the five irregularities are shown below in the following order: 1) Omitted consonant doubling; 2) Needless consonant doubling; 3) Surplus -e endings; 4) Exceptions to a, e, i, o, u; 5) Exceptions to a-e, i-e, o-e, u-e and 459 unpredictable spellings for the /ee/ sound. The exceptions dilute the English 'long/short' system so much that hundreds of spellings simply have to be learned word by word, instead of being spelt systematically, like 'pal, pale, pallid'. They were made irregular mainly with careless changes to the original English spelling system and are now most responsible for making learning to write English exceptionally difficult and time-consuming. Most of them cause reading difficulties as well, not just spelling ones: e.g. hide, hidden – hideous; arrow - arrive (cf. arise); save - have; ouch - touch. --------------------------------------------------------------
1) Words of more than one syllable without doubled consonants after their short, stressed vowel (which undermine the 500+ words with doubling, e.g. cabbage, chicken, adder...). (Only one-syllable words lengthened with suffixes have systematic consonant doubling: e.g. beg – begged, beggar, begging; fat – fatten, fatty).
Cabaret, cabin, cabinet, distribute, elaborate(X2), fabulous, habit, inhabit, liberal, liberty, nebula, probable, prohibit, rebel(noun), robin, tribute.
Articulate, binoculars, crocodile, decade, decorate, document, executive, faculty, placard, recognise, record(n), ridiculous, second(n), secondary, secular, vacuum, vicar. Accurate, broccoli, hiccough, hiccup, occupy, piccolo, soccer, succulent, tobacco. Echo, mechanism. Chequered, lacquer, liquor, liquorice.
Academy, adequate, body, credit, deciduous, edible, edit, educate, federal, graduate(X2), hideous, idiot, madam, medal, medical, moderate(X2), modern, modest, pedal, pedigree, produce(n), product, radical, radish, ridicule, shadow, study, video, widow.
Café, certificate, magnificent, Pacific, profit, reference, refuge, refuse (n), significant, specific,
agony, brigand, dragon, flagon, frigate, hexagonal, jaguar, negative, regular, sugar, vigorous, wagon,
Ability, abolish, analysis, apologise, astrology, balance, bilious, calendar, celebrate, celery, chalet, civilian, colony, column, delegate(X2), deliberate(X2), delicacy, deluge, demolish, develop, element, elephant, eligible, expel, facilities, felon, galaxy, helicopter, holiday, invalid(adj), italic, knowledge, lapel, lily, melody, melon, metropolitan, military, morality, motel, olive, palace, palate, pelican, policy, polish, politics, polythene, probability, qualify, quality, reality, relative, relevant, relic, salad, salary, salmon, salon, skeleton, solemn, solid, solitary, talent, talon, telescope, theology, tolerate, valentine, valiant, valid, value, ventriloquist, vitality, volume, voluntary.
Abominable, academic, amateur, atomic, barometer, calamity, camera, camouflage, cemetery, chemical, chemistry, comedy, comet, comic, criminal, damage, democrat, dominate, domino, dynamic, economic, eliminate, emerald, emigrate, epidemic, family, famished, feminine, glamour, image, kilometre, laminate(x2), lemon, limit, memorise, memory, plumber, preliminary, premier, premise, primitive, prominent, promise, remedy, semi, similar, simile, thermometer, timid, vomit.
Aluminium, animal, anonymous, anorak, astonish, astronomy, banish, banister, benefit, canopy, cinema, clinical, conifer, continue, degenerate(x2), economy, electronic, enemy, energy, finish, granary, honest, honour, January, lieutenant, linear, manage, manor, manual, manuscript, menace, menu, mineral, minimal, minimum, minister, minute(n), monarch, monastery, monitor, monument, opinion, organic, panic, penalty, penetrate, planet, punish, senate, sinister, spaniel, spinach, strenuous, supersonic, tenor, tonic, vanish, venison, vinegar.
Capita, capital, capitol, copy, deputy, dilapidated, epic, episode, leper, opera, operate, popular, proper, property, rapid, separate(x2), tapestry, tepid, topic, tropics.
America, Arab, arable, arid, asparagus, authority, baron, beret, caramel, caravan, caricature, carol, ceremony, chariot, charity, cherish, clarity, comparative, comparison, conspiracy, coral, derelict, empirical, experiment, florist, foreign, forest, garage(UK), herald, heritage, heroin/, heroine, heron, historic, horoscope, inherent, inherited, majority, merit, minority, miracle, moral, necessarily, numerical, orange, origin, parasol, parish, peril, periscope, perish, popularity, primarily, priority, quarantine, sheriff, sincerity, spirit, sterilise, therapist, transparent, very.
Acid, adolescent, anticipated, capacity, decimal, discipline, electricity, explicit, fascinate, glacier(UK), municipal, oscillate, pacifist, participate, precipice, prosecute, publicity, recipe, simplicity, solicitor, specify, specimen, velocity; glisten, listen; convalescent, crescent.
Gratitude, aquatic, athletic, atom, baton, botany, British, catalogue, catapult, category, citizen, city, compatible, competitive, critic, critical, dedicate, diplomatic, lateral, latitude, literal, literary, magnetic, mathematics, metal, monotonous, obliterate, pathetic, petal, pity, platinum, platypus, poetic, political, satin, saturate, Saturday, Saturn, static, strategy, tetanus, veteran, yeti.
Avenue, average, cavalry, cavern, cavity, civic, civil, clever, controversy, crevice, deliver, devil, driven, eleven, equivalent, ever, evidence, given, gravity, havoc, hover, javelin, lavender, navigate, never, novice, poverty, privilege, proverb, providence, quiver, ravenous, reverend, river, rivet, savage, scavenge, seven, shiver.
Hazard, lizard, lozenge, wizard, wizened; deposit, closet, desert, designate(x2), desolate(x2), hesitate, miserable, positive, presence, present, president, prison, resident, risen, visible, visit; scissors.
56 words have irregularly spelt short vowels and missing doubled consonants:
Any, berry/bury, burial, endeavour, heaven, heavy, heifer, jealous, jeopardy, leopard, many, meadow, peasant, pheasant, pleasant, ready (already), steady, threaten, weapon, zealous,
busy, chrysalis, cylinder, cynical, lyric, physical, physics, synagogue, synonym, syrup, typical, tyranny, women,
colour, courage, cousin, covenant, cover, covet, covey, dozen, govern, honey, monetary, money, nourish, onion, oven, shovel, slovenly, somersault, stomach, thorough. Sausage. Courier.
2) Words with needlessly doubled consonants (i.e. not after a stressed short vowel; the stressed syllable is underlined). - Compare: abridge, acute, adrenalin, afar, alone...
Abbreviate.
Accompany, accomplish, accord, accordance, accordion, account, accrue, accumulate, accuse, accustom.
Address(uk). Affair, affect, affection, affectionate, affluent, afford, chauffeur, differential, diffusion, effect, efficient, effluent, effusive, giraffe, graffiti, offence, offend, offensive, official, officious, paraffin, sheriff, sufficient. Aggravate, aggressive, suggest.
Alliance, allotment, allow, allowance, allowed/aloud, ballistic, balloon, caterpillar, collage, collapse, collect, collection, collide, constellation, controlled, excellent, hello, illegal, illegible, illiterate, illuminate, illusion, illustration, installation, intellectual, jewellery, llama, marvellous, parallel, pastille, roller, satellite, swollen, tonsillitis, traveller(UK), virtually, wholly, woollen.
Accommodation, ammunition, command, commemorate, commence, commercial, commission, commit, commodities, commotion, communication, communion, community, commuter, immaculate, immediate, immense, immersion, immortal, immune, programme, programmer, recommend.
Anniversary, announce, annoy, annul, connect, Finn/fin, inn, mayonnaise, personnel, questionnaire, tyranny.
Appal, apparatus, apparent, appendix, applaud, applause, appliance, apply, appoint, appreciate, apprehensive, apprentice, approach, appropriate(x2), approve, approximate(x2), hippopotamus, opportunity, oppose, sapphire, supply, support, suppose.
Arrange, array, arrest, arrive, barricade, correct, correlation, correspond, curriculum, erratic, hurrah, interrupt, irregular, irrigation, occurrence, serrated, surrender, surreptitious, surround, terrific, torrential, verruca.
Assail, assassin, assassinate, assault, assemble, assert, assessment, assessor, assign, assist, assistant, associate(x2), assort, assume, cassette, dessert, embassy, essential, lasso, moose/mousse, necessarily, necessary, possess, possessive, possibility.
Attach, attack, attain, attempt, attend, attention, attorney, attract, attributed, battalion, cigarette, mattress, omelette, palette, silhouette.
3) Words with surplus –e endings which obscure the vowel-lengthening function of –e in words like 'define, bone, care, endure, advise, inflate, ignite, drive, save, survive'.
Destine, determine, discipline, doctrine, examine, engine, famine, feminine, genuine, heroine, imagine, iodine, intestine, jasmine, masculine, medicine, urine,
gone, shone. Are, (cf. care, endure, mature). Conjure, exposure, failure, figure, fissure, injure, measure, pleasure, pressure, procedure, treasure. Adventure, agriculture, architecture, capture, caricature, creature, culture, departure, expenditure, feature, fracture, furniture, future, gesture, lecture, legislature, literature, manufacture, miniature, mixture, nature, picture, puncture, scripture, signature, structure, temperature, torture, venture, vulture. Purchase, premise, promise, purpose. (cf. atlas, devise, propose). Accurate, adequate, affectionate, candidate, chocolate, climate, considerate, corporate, delicate, desperate, extortionate, fortunate, frigate, illiterate, immaculate, immediate, intermediate, intricate, laureate, legitimate, obstinate, palate, passionate, pirate, private, proportionate, senate, Composite, Definite, exquisite, favourite, granite, infinite, opposite. In 25 words the –ate endings are used for two different words (to deliberate a deliberate act). Advocate, alternate, appropriate, approximate, articulate, associate, certificate, co-ordinate, degenerate, delegate, deliberate, designate, desolate, dictate, duplicate, elaborate, estimate, graduate, intimate, laminate, moderate, separate, subordinate, syndicate, triplicate (cf. inflate, dilate, obliterate). Give, forgive, have, live (cf. drive, save, alive), abrasive, abusive, adhesive, aggressive, apprehensive, comprehensive, compulsive, conclusive, creative, cursive, decisive, defensive, depressive, derisive, detective, dismissive, divisive, effusive, elusive, evasive, excessive, exclusive, expensive, explosive, expressive, extensive, fugitive, impressive, impulsive, incisive, inclusive, initiative, intensive, invasive, massive, motive, narrative, objective, obtrusive, offensive, oppressive, passive, pensive, permissive, perspective, persuasive, possessive, productive, progressive, prospective, radioactive, repulsive, respective, responsive, selective, sensitive, subjective, submissive, subversive, successive.
4) Words with irregular spellings for short /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and - (Letters in red are redundant.)
A - (bad, cat, rang, chav) - plaid, plait, meringue, have.
E - (bed, bend) – but : Bread/bred, breadth, breast, breath, dead, deaf, dealt, death, dread, dreamt, head, health, lead(x2), leant, leapt, meant, read(x2), ream, spread, sweat, thread, threat, wealth. Breakfast, cleanliness, cleanse, endeavour, feather, heather, heaven, heavy, instead, leather, measure, stealthy, treacherous, treadmill, treasure, weather. Friend, every, said, says, Wednesday.
Some lack doubled consonants as well (c.f. jelly, teddy, penny): Berry/bury. Any, many. Jeopardy, leopard. Heifer. Jealous, meadow, peasant, pheasant, pleasant, ready, (already), steady, weapon, zealous.
Different in US and UK: Leisure, lieutenant [leesure/lesure, lutennant/leftennant].
I – (in, it, sit ) - except: Build, built, busy, English, pretty, sieve, vineyard, women. Abyss, crypt, crystal, cyclical, cygnet, cymbals, cyst, eucalyptus, gym, hymn, hypnotise, lynch, lynx, mystery, myth, Olympics, rhythm, syllable, symbol, symmetry, sympathy, symptom, synchronise, syndicate, syndrome, synthesis, system. Without doubled consonants as well (unlike ‘syllable’ and ‘symmetry’): Chrysalis, cylinder, cynical, lyric, physics, synagogue, synonym, syrup, typical, tyranny.
O – (on hot spot) – irregular mainly just after w and qu: Swallow, swamp, swan, swap, waft, wand, wander, want/wont, wanton, warrant, warren, warrior, was, wash, wasp, watch, watt, wattle, what. Quality, quadrangle, quantity, quarantine, quarry, squabble, squad, squander, squash, squat. + Cough, trough; laurel, sausage.
U – (up, under) - Next to m, n , v and w, the short sound is often spelt o or o-e.
(* quite often without doubled consonants too, e.g. money– cf. funny).
Among, Monday, money, monger, mongrel, monk, monkey, month, mother, smother. Comfort, company, compass, pommel/pummel, stomach. Come, some/sum. Front, son, ton/tonne , tongue, sponge. Done, none/nun, nothing. Honey, onion. Above, cover, covet, covey, covenant, dove, glove, govern, love, oven, shove, shovel, slovenly.
Won/ one, wonder, worry. Once. Country, nourish, young. Enough. Not next to m, n or v: Double, couple, trouble. Rough, slough(x2), tough. Brother, colour, courage, cousin, dozen, does, hiccough/hiccup, other, Southern, thorough*, touch. Blood, flood.
5) Words with irregular spellings for a-e, i-e, o-e, u-e, followed by e-e (because e-e is no longer the main spelling for the /ee/ sound, as it used to be until the 15th century).
A-e (late, tale) Ale/ail, bale/bail, male/mail, pale/pail, sale/sail, tale/tail, whale/wail, assail, cocktail, detail, fail, hail, jail, nail, prevail, rail, retail, snail, trail, Main/mane, pain/pane, plain/plane, rain/reins(reindeer)/reign, vain/vein, Abstain, brain, chain... (in 31 words) Skein; deign, feign; campaign; champagne. Crane, lane, sane, membrane. Made/maid, aid, braid, laid, paid, raid, afraid. Brake/break, stake/steak. Aim, claim, exclaim, maim, proclaim. Place/plaice. Haste, paste, taste, waste/waist; Daisy, praise, raise, raisin. Traitor, waiter. Ate/eight, bate/bait, grate/great, straight/straits, wait/weight. Fête, freight. Faith. Halfpenny, neighbour. Able, cable, cradle, fable, gable, ladle, sabre, stable, table – (cf. label).
I-e - (ice) - except: I /eye/aye/ay, bite/bight(bay), knight/night, lite/light, mite/might, rite/right/write,
slight/sleight(trick), sight/site/cite. Alight, blight, bright, delight, fight, flight, fright, frighten, lightning, mighty, tight. Height; indict. Behind, bind, blind, find, grind, hind, kind, mind, ninth, pint, rind, wind (x2); Bible (cf. libel), bridle, disciple, idle, rifle, stifle, trifle. Child, mild (cf. children, mildew), wild, whilst; island; climb. Eider-down, Fahrenheit, kaleidoscope. Either, neither (UK pronunciation). Choir. Resign, sign. Tire/tyre, asylum, cycle, cypress, dyke, dynamic, dynamite, dynamo, hyacinth, hydrangea, hydrogen, hyena, hygrometer, hypothesis, nylon, paralyse, psychology, pylon, python, rhyme, scythe, style, thyroid, type, tyrant.
O - e, -o - (open, so) – quite regular in more recently imported words: Alcove, associated, chrome... video, volcano, zero. Except: Bungalow. Cocoa. Oboe. Pharaoh. Depot.
In older English words, the o-e/-o sound is spelt very unpredictably:
Approach, boast, boat, broach/brooch, cloak, coach, coal, coast, coat, coax, cockroach, croak, float, foal, foam, gloat, goal, goat, groan, load, loaf, loan, loathe, moan, oaf, oak, oath, oats, poach, road, roam, roast, shoal, soak, soap, stoat, throat, toad, toast.
Bold, cold, fold, gold, hold, old, scold, sold, solder, soldier, told. Folk, yoke/yolk. Holster.
Bolt, colt, dolt, jolt, revolt. Mould, moult, sole/soul, shoulder, smoulder.
Knoll, pole/poll, role/ roll, scroll, stroll, toll, troll, swollen, holy/ wholly. Control, enrol, patrol.
Host, most, post, postal, poster. Both, gross, noble, only, sloth. Goes. Mauve. Blown, bowl, grown, growth, known, mown, own, shown, sown/sewn, thrown, rowan. Blow, bow(x2), crow, flow, glow, grow, know, low, mow, row(x2), show, slow, snow, sow(x2), stow, throw, tow. Arrow, barrow, bellow, below, billow, burrow, elbow, fellow, follow, gallows, hollow, marrow, narrow, pillow, shadow, shallow, swallow, sorrow, sparrow, tomorrow, wallow, widow, willow, window, yellow.
Doe, floe, foe, hoe, roe, sloe, toe, woe. Oh/owe. So/sew. Dough, though. Ago, also, fro, go, hello, no. Alone, arose, bone, bony, broke, choke, chose, chosen, close, clothes, clover, code, cone, cope, cove, dole, dome, dose, doze, drone, drove, froze, frozen, grocer, grope, hole, holy, home, hope, hose, joke, lone, mole, nose, open, over, poke, pony, pope, primrose, rode, rope, rose, scope, slope, smoke, spoke, stoke, stole, stolen, stone, strode, stroke, tadpole, throne, tone, whole, woke, wove, wrote, yodel.
U - e, -ue – (use, tuba; cue, due) – In the stem of words, few exceptions: you/ewe/yew, Eucalyptus, ewer, youth. Feud, feudal, neutral, pneumatic, pseudo, rheumatism. Lewd, newt, pewter, sewage, jewel, steward. Juice, nuisance, suicide, suitable, suitcase. Beauty. Nuclear. Tuesday.
In endings unpredictable: Cue/queue, due/dew, sue. Argue, avenue, barbecue, continue, imbue, issue, pursue, rescue, revenue, statue, subdue, tissue, value, devalue, venue, virtue. Chew, few, Jew, knew, new, pew, spew, stew, askew, curfew, curlew, mildew, nephew. View, interview, review. Emu, menu.
E - e / ea / ee ... – (deed, lead, concede, siege, conceive, police, people, key, ski ...) The spellings of the /ee/ sound were made unpredictable mainly in the 15th C, when court scribes were obliged to switch from French to English. They changed most e-e spellings (like Chaucer's 'seke, speke, shreke, beleve') to the many different ones we still use now. Johnson's dictionary of 1755 made them even worse by giving 48 words 2 spellings: Bee/be, beech/beach, been/bean, beet/beat, breech/breach, cheep/cheap, creek/creak, deedear, discreet/discrete, eerie/eyrie, eve/eaves, feet/feat, flee/flea, freeze/frieze, jeans/genes, Greece/grease, heel/heal, heahere, key/quay, leech/leach, leek/leak, meet/meat, need/knead, pee/pea, peace/piece, peek/peak, peel/peal, peepier, reed/readx2[reed/red], reek/wreak, reel/real, sealing/ceiling, seamen/semen, see/sea, seem/seam, seen/scene, serial/cereal, sheeshear, sheikh/chic, steel/steal, sweet/suite, tee/tea, teem/team, wee/we, week/weak, wheel/weal. In UK also: geezegeyser, leavelever.
Open e : Adhesive, arena, cafeteria, cedar, chameleon, Chinese, comedian, compete, complete, concrete, convene, convenient, decent, demon, equal, era, even, evil, experience, exterior, extreme, female, fever, frequent, genie, genius, hero, hyena, imperial, inferior, ingredient, intermediate, legal, legion, lenient, material, medium, mere, meteor, meter, millipede, mysterious, obedient, period, peter, polythene, precede, previous, query, recent, recess, region, relay, scheme, sequence, sequin, series, serious, serum, species, sphere, stampede, strategic, superior, supreme, swede, tedious, theme, theory, these, torpedo, trapeze, vehicle, Venus, zero. He, me, she. Beef, beer, beetle, between, bleed, bleep, breed, breeze, career, cheek, cheer, cheese, cheetah, creep, deed, deep, eel, exceed, feeble, feed, feel, fleece, fleet, geese, greed, green, greet, indeed, jeep, jeer, keel, keen, keep, kneel, meek, needle, peep, pioneer, preen, proceed, proceedings, proceeds, queen, queer, reef, screech, screen, seed, seek, seep, seesaw, sheep, sheet, sleek, sleep, sleet, sleeve, smithereens, sneer, sneeze, speech, speed, squeeze, steep, steeple, steer, street, succeed, sweep, sweet, teeth, teetotal, thirteen, tweed, tweezers, weed, weep, wheedle, wheeze, wildebeest. Appeal, beacon, bead, beak, beam, beard, beast, beaver, beneath, bleach, bleak, bleat, breathe, cease, cheat, clean, clear, colleague, conceal, congeal, cream, crease, creature, deal, dean, decrease, defeat, disease, dream, dreary, each, eager, eagle, ear, ease, east, Easter, eat, fear, feast, feature, freak, gear, gleam, glean, heap, heat, heath, heathen, heave, increase, leadx2, leaf, league, lean, leap, lease, leash, least, leave, meagre, meal, mean, measles, near, neat, ordeal, peach, peat, plead, please, pleat, preach, queasy, reach, really, reap, rear, reason, release, repeat, retreat, reveal, scream, seal, sear, season, seat, sheaf, sheath, smear, sneak, speak, spear, squeak, squeal, squeamish, steam, streak, stream, teach, teak, tearx2, tease, theatre, treacle, treason, treat, treaty, veal, wean, weary, weasel, weave, wheat, wreath, year, yeast, zeal. Open i: Albino, antique, aubergine, bikini, clementine, fatigue, guillotine, machine, magazine, margarine, marine, mosquito, plasticine, police, prestige, ravine, regime, routine, sardine, suite, tambourine, tangerine, trampoline, unique, vaseline, pizza.
Achieve, belief, believe, brief , chief, diesel, field, fiend, fierce, grief, grieve, hygienic, medieval, niece, pierce, priest, relief, relieve, shield, shriek, siege, thief, thieve, tier, wield, yield. Caffeine, codeine, protein, seize, weir, weird, conceive /coneit, deceive /deceit, receive /receipt. Assorted variants: People; cathedral, secret; pizza, ski, souvenir; debris.
Learning to read and write English could be made much easier by merely correcting some of the above irregularities which make it exceptionally difficult and time-consuming.
Posted 1st July 2010 by Masha Bell (http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.com/2010/06/long-and-short-vowels.html?m=1)

moral hazard definition in english video

moral hazard definition: a situation in which people or organizations do not suffer from the results of their bad decisions…. Learn more. Definition of moral hazard in the Definitions.net dictionary. Meaning of moral hazard. What does moral hazard mean? Information and translations of moral hazard in the most comprehensive dictionary definitions resource on the web. Definition of moral-hazard noun in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more. A moral hazard is a risk that an insurance company has that policyholders may not be honest. There is a moral hazard in that, by offering excessive benefits, an incentive to claim could be created. A moral hazard exists when the applicant may either want an outright loss to occur or may have a tendency to be less than careful with property. hazard ; jeopardy ; peril ; risk ; endangerment ; (economics) the lack of any incentive to guard against a risk when you are protected against it (as by insurance); "insurance companies are exposed to a moral hazard if the insured party is not honest". Show declension of moral hazard. moral hazard ( usually uncountable; plural moral hazards) noun. The issue of moral hazard is key to understand-ing several topics, most notably how rms are or-ganized, di erent compensation schemes such as CEO pay, and also many of the monitoring schemes that companies have in place, such as Board of Di-rectors, auditing departments, and more generally accounting and control mechanisms within rms. Moral hazard definition, an insurance company's risk as to the insured's trustworthiness and honesty. See more. What is the definition of moral hazard? What is the meaning of moral hazard? How do you use moral hazard in a sentence? What are synonyms for moral hazard? Definition: Moral hazard is a situation in which one party gets involved in a risky event knowing that it is protected against the risk and the other party will incur the cost. It arises when both the parties have incomplete information about each other. Moral Hazard bezeichnet den Anreiz eines feuerversicherten Gebäudeeigentümers, weniger Sorgfalt bei der Schadensvermeidung bzw. -begrenzung aufzuwenden als ein Hausbesitzer ohne Versicherung. Über ähnlich gelagerte Anreize von Krankenversicherten gibt eine umfangreiche Literatur Auskunft.

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Financial Economics - Moral Hazard - YouTube

From Texas Enterprise ( http://texasenterprise.org/series/lingo ): What happens when someone is insulated from the repercussions of their actions and never h... This CF&P Foundation's Economics 101 video discusses the Moral Hazard, which occurs when bad choices are subsidized. This often happens when government inter... Imagine you take your car in to the shop for routine service and the mechanic says you need a number of repairs. Do you really need them? The mechanic certai... Moral hazard is a tendency to be more willing to take a risk, knowing that the potential costs or burdens of taking such risk will be borne, in whole or in p... Moral hazard happens when an agent is given an implicit guarantee of support in the event of making a loss – for example insurance pay-outs or the prospect o... Dieser und ähnliche Slidecasts stehen Ihnen an der FOM Hochschule für Oekonomie und Management in Ihrem Studium zur Verfügung.Bei Interesse erreichen Sie die...

What does moral hazard mean? - Definitions.net

moral hazard definition in english

moral hazard definition in english - win

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Some stats on how the silent e rule is so inconsistent!

moral hazard definition in english video

moral hazard definition in english top

Financial Economics - Moral Hazard - YouTube